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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




Class in the Week Day Church School of the Magyar Reformed Church, Toledo, Ohio 

" V7 ~ 

J I • ■ 




A Week Day Church School Class in the Hungarian Reformed Church, Toledo, Ohio 



The 
Week Day Church School 



A Historical Sketch, Brief Analysis, and Attempted Evaluation of the 
Organized Efforts to Furnish Week Day Religious Instruc- 
tion to Pupils of Elementary and High School 
Age in the United States 



By 

Walter Albion Squires, B.D. 

Director of JVeek Day Religious Instruction 
Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work 

With an Introduction by 

Harold McA. Robinson, D.D. 




philadelphia 

Presbyterian Board of Publication 

and Sabbath School Work 

19 2 1 



.SI 



Copyright, 1921 
by 

F. M. BRASELMAN 



FEB -3*22 



©0US53722 



THIS BOOK is dedicated to Oscar 
Chrisman, at one time Professor of 
Child Study in the Kansas State Normal 
School; to George Albert Coe, in whose 
classes I was enrolled for a little while in 
Northwestern University; to Warren Hall 
Landon, President of San Francisco Theo- 
logical Seminary and Instuctor in Sunday- 
School Work; to Edward Porter St. John 
and George Ellsworth Dawson, formerly 
professors in Hartford School of Religious 
Pedagogy; to Norman E. Richardson and 
Walter Scott Athearn, whose efficient 
teaching in Boston School of Theology 
is deeply appreciated. These were my 
teachers in Religious Pedagogy and Child 
Psychology. The memory of their faith- 
ful classroom work has lasted through the 
years. I owe them a debt I can never 
pay. If this book contains anything of 
value the credit belongs to them; if it 
has wandered from the truth, the fault 
is all my own. 

The Author 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

T^HIS book is prepared in the hope that it may help to 
meet the rapidly growing demand for information 
concerning week-day religious instruction. It was im- 
possible to give adequate information in the author's pam- 
phlet on the Gary Church School Plan. Even the enlarged 
second edition of that leaflet, because of the limitations as 
to space, had to leave some important matters untouched. 
A fuller treatment of these subjects has been possible in 
the present volume. 

More than thirty different communities have under- 
taken the organization of classes for week-day religious 
instruction during the past five months. A still larger 
number of communities are planning to begin this type of 
work before the end of the present school year. If the 
movement continues to grow in the geometrical ratio which 
has characterized its growth for the past two or three years, 
it will soon assume proportions overshadowing every other 
educational agency of the Church. 

In the genesis of such a widespread movement there are 
many dangers. New ground is being broken; we are out- 
side the beaten and familiar paths. Our courses of study 
are in an incomplete and somewhat chaotic stale. The 
element of experiment is large, because precedents are few 
and fragmentary. Large waste of effort and some finan- 
cial loss are apt to occur unless the experiences of the com- 
munities which have been longest in the movement are 
gathered up and made available for those just launching 
into the enterprise. That the great and historic elements 
of our religion may find their rightful place in the new pro- 
gram of religious education, there is need that it have the 



6 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

guiding care of minds trained in theology, as well as the 
guiding care of minds trained in the fundamentals of 
modern pedagogy. There is need that the ministry of the 
Church give it large attention. 

The author's viewpoint is that of one who regards a 
larger use of the educative principle in evangelism as 
highly desirable. He believes that educational influences 
are among the most potent agencies used of God in leading 
souls to conversion experiences, and that they are essential 
for after-conversion development if the newborn soul is 
ever to become anything more than a perpetual babe of the 
faith. All efforts to set evangelism and religious nurture 
over against each other as wholly distinct and mutually 
exclusive methods of bringing individuals into the King- 
dom, are to be discouraged. They seek to alienate agen- 
cies which ought to work in closest unity. When the 
splendid zeal of the true evangelist and the learned skill of 
the trained pedagogue are in close cooperation, the work 
of the Church is most efficiently done. 

The author has tried to give the readers of this book 
something more than the mere facts concerning the week- 
day church-school enterprises so far undertaken in the 
country. He has tried to analyze and evaluate the facts. 
The statistics contained in the following pages will be out 
of date almost as soon as the book is published; but the 
author has dared to hope that the discussion of the prin- 
ciples involved may be of somewhat more abiding value. 

If this volume should prove helpful to those entering 
upon the organization of week-day church schools, the 
author will feel abundantly repaid by the thought that he 
has made some small contribution to so great a cause. He 
who attempts to write on such an important subject as 
religious education, should feel himself bound to speak the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The 
author has tried to keep this obligation in view through- 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 7 

out the preparation of the material contained in this book. 
He requests that his work be examined and criticised with 
the same attitude of mind. 

Acknowledgements are due to Professor Edward Porter 
St. John and to Professor George E. Dawson for permission 
to use materials secured in their classes at Hartford School 
of Religious Pedagogy. The author has written under the 
constant advice and direction of Dr. Harold McA. Robin- 
son, Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Publication 
and Sabbath School Work. The author visited most of 
the communities where week-day religious instruction is 
being carried on and found teachers, superintendents, and 
pastors glad to give information concerning the week-day 
church -school work in which they were engaged. He takes 
this opportunity to thank them for their help and cour- 
teous hospitality. 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 1,1921. 



INTRODUCTION 

nPHIS is a handbook of recent experience in the field of 
week-day religious instruction. Mr. Squires recites 
the historic causes which are the inspiration of the present 
movement. He gathers the experience gained in various 
experiments, analyzes it, and makes it available for the 
guidance of the Church. But while this is specifically a 
handbook of experience, a theory underlies it whose essen- 
tial nature ought to be briefly developed in this intro- 
duction. 

The end sought in religious education determines the 
means. This handbook rests upon the theory that reli- 
gious education, when filled with a Christian content, 
seeks a spiritual end. The end is primarily spiritual and 
personal, and only secondarily, though necessarily, moral 
and social. This is not to say that religious education has 
no moral and social objectives, but that the attainment of 
these moral and social objectives is dependent upon and 
consequent to the achievement of the great spiritual and 
personal end — the establishment of communion between 
the individual and God. It does not deny, but strongly 
insists upon the active contribution which God himself 
makes to the achievement of this communion. Indeed, it 
delimits, on the human side, the contribution which edu- 
cation may make to the end sought, in terms of the 
Pauline phrase, "I planted, Apollos watered; but God 
gave the increase." It does not admit an otiose deity, but 
fully depends upon the Christian God whose saving grace 
is active and effectual. Concretely defined in terms of 
Christian history, the end sought in religious education is 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION 

the cultivation of an informed and personal faith in Jesus 
Christ as Saviour and Lord and the dedication of a trained 
and obedient life to his service. 

This theory conserves the fruits of the Protestant 
Reformation which are largely in peril in our day. It 
takes the ancient ground that Christianity is a religion of 
a faith which is creative of a moral and social disposition, 
and not a religion of moral and social dispositions mechan- 
ically acquired. To speak a theological language, salvation 
is not by character but in order to it. This theory will not 
insist less upon character, but rather more. It will not 
deny the widest moral and social implications of Chris- 
tianity, but will rather furnish them with adequate ground 
and motivation. It will deepen the sources of the Chris- 
tian life while it widens its scope. 

This theory, moreover, will conserve the independence 
of Christianity. Christianity will not be construed as 
either the equivalent or the servant of democracy, even 
when democracy is defined as a social spirit. The concepts 
of Christianity and democracy will not be allowed to fall 
together. The end of religious education is not the train- 
ing of citizens for a democracy. The end of religious edu- 
cation lies beyond the historic State and beyond society 
as at present organized. The end of religious education is 
the making of Christians, not citizens. Of course, Chris- 
tians will continue to be citizens, and their civic and social 
responsibilities will be fully insisted upon. The unfolding 
of a Christian's duty to society and the training of the 
individual to the full discharge of that duty will be no 
inconsiderable part of the process of religious education, 
but social service, thus broadly understood, will be kept 
in its place as the fruit and not the root of Christianity. 
In other words, this handbook proceeds on the assumption 
that the Christian is a citizen of two worlds, but that his 
naturalization into the citizenship of heaven alone qualifies 



INTRODUCTION 11 

him for the full discharge of his moral and social duties in 
this present society. 

Not only laborious and sacrifical effort is necessary if 
the Church is to take advantage of the rising tide of in- 
terest in the religious education of the helpless childhood 
and stormy youth of the nation, but careful thinking that 
will preserve for that generation our Christian heritage, 
undiminished and undefiled and enriched by our own 
experience. It would be sad if when the Church was sum- 
moned to new and gigantic tasks, it should undertake 
them cut off from the deep and eternal sources of power. 

Harold McA. Robinson. 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction 

CHAPTER I 

The Place of Religious Education in the Program of the Church. Its 
importance shown by: 

1. Church Statistics 18 

2. Statistics Concerning Juvenile Delinquency and Adolescent 

Crime 27 

3. The Development of a Psychology of Religion 29 

4. A Better Understanding of the Laws of Heredity 31 

5. Developments in Secular Educational Science 33 

G. More Extensive Knowledge Concerning the Great Religions of 

the World 34 

7. Experiences in Great Reforms 35 

8. Recent Demonstrations of the Power of Education to Trans- 

form National Life 38 

9. A Changed Conception as to the Scope and Function of Re- 

ligion 40 

10. The Cessation of Theological Controversies and the Turning 
of the Religious Mind of the Times Back to the Teachings 
and Example of Jesus 41 

CHAPTER II 

Inadequacy of the Customary Educational Agencies of the Church. 
The customary educational agencies of the Church are inadequate: 

1 . As to Time Provided for Religious Instruction 46 

2. As to Teaching Force 48 

3. As to Supervision of Teachers and Instruction 49 

4. As to Financial Support 50 

5. As to Housing and Equipment 51 

6. As to Courses of Study 53 

7. As to Expressional Activity 53 

8. As to Correlation 54 

9. As to Distribution of Agencies 55 

10. As to Spiritual Dynamic 58 

CHAPTER III 

Various Attempts to Supplement the Educational Agencies of the 
Church 

1. Vacation Bible Schools 70 

2. Summer Schools of Religion 72 

13 



14 TABLE OF CONTENTS 

3. Community Training Schools 74 

4. Occasional Classes 75 

5. Parochial Schools 76 

6. Pastor's Communicant Classes 76 

7. Pre-School Chapel Services 78 

8. Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. Classes 78 

9. Public-School Credits for Outside Bible Studv 80 

10. Week-Day Church Schools 81 

CHAPTER IV 

Three Types of Week-Day Church Schools 

1. The Denominational or Individual Church Type 87 

2. The Denominational Community Type 94 

3. The Interdenominational Community Type 99 

CHAPTER V 

Some Contributions of the Week-Day Church-School Movement 
Toward the Solution of Religious Educational Problems 

1. More Adequate Time for Religious Instruction 112 

2. More Regular Attendance 114 

3. Better Trained Teachers 116 

4. More Complete Correlation 116 

5. More Adequate Courses of Study 117 

0. Better Equipment and Housing 118 

7. More Expressional Work 119 

8. Contribution to the General Pedogogical Science 119 

9. Reaching the Children Spiritually Untaught 119 

10. Better Distribution of Agencies 126 

CHAPTER VI 

Problems Involved in the Organization and Administration of Week- 
Day Church Schools 

1. The Securing of Teachers 131 

2. Rooms and Equipment 135 

3. Time for the Meeting of Classes 137 

4. Courses of Study 140 

5. Governing Boards 142 

6. Financing the Schools 145 

7. Books and Materials 147 

8. Records and Reports 149 

9. Grading 150 

10. Recruiting Pupils 151 

CHAPTER VII 

Sources of Information Concerning Week-Day Church Schools 159 

Index 166 



CHAPTER I 



The Place of Religious Education in 
the Program of the Church 



CHAPTER I 

The Place of Religious Education in the Program 
of the Church 

A LITTLE more than seventy years ago, Horace Bush- 
■^ nell published his book entitled "Christian Nurture." 
It has been maintained that no literary production is ever 
rightly called "epoch making." However, Dr. BushnelFs 
book comes near being entitled to this much used phrase. 
If the publication of "Christian Nurture" did not cause a 
new era of religious education to begin, it certainly marked 
the beginning of one. These seventy years have been 
eventful for the growth of appreciation of the teaching 
function of the Church. When this seventy-year period 
began, education was hardly considered to be a means of 
grace for the spiritual regeneration of individuals and the 
evangelization of the world. At the end of the period 
we are coming to realize that it is a primary factor in 
both. 

The twenty years following the publication of Dr. 
Bushnell's book were marked by the multiplication and de- 
velopment of Sunday-school associations. This phase of 
the religious education revival reached its climax with the 
organization of the World's Sunday School Association in 
1886. Then came years when the improvement of Sunday 
schools was the primary educational interest of the Church. 
Organized classes, teacher training, graded lessons, de- 
partmental organization; these were the subjects on which 
Sunday-school literature dwelt — the improvements for 
which progressive schools made effort. Sunday-school 
buildings began to be added to the church plant with in- 
creasing frequency. The Akron style of Sunday-school 

17 



18 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

architecture, with classrooms spread in a wide arc about 
the superintendent's platform, was evolved. 

At about the time the twentieth century began, a grow- 
ing conviction that the Sunday-school could never be made 
an adequate agency for the whole educational task of the 
Church, was manifesting itself. Religious educational 
agencies for the successful supplementing of the Sunday- 
school instruction became the goal of thoughtful church 
leaders. Out of this quest for more adequate agencies for 
the teaching function of the Church have grown the Vaca- 
tion Bible School movement, the attempt to secure public- 
school credit for outside Bible study, and the week-day 
church-school movement. 

Many causes have contributed to this growing interest in 
religious education. A listing and analyzing of these con- 
tributing causes ought to be of use in giving us an under- 
standing of the historical development of this phase of 
religious interest. Such an attempt may also be useful in 
helping us to a more adequate conception of the import- 
ance of the teaching function of the Church. For we must 
not fall into the error of believing that this seventy-year 
period of growing interest in religious education and of 
more or less persistent efforts to improve the educational 
agencies of the Church has accomplished all that is neces- 
sary. An intelligent interest in religious education and an 
enthusiastic devotion to the teaching ministry of the Church 
are characteristics, not of many church members, but of 
comparatively few. The place assigned in the economy of 
the Church to the religious educational agencies is far from 
satisfactory. The causes here named are given without any 
attempt to arrange them according either to their relative 
importance, or their historical sequence. 

1. Church statistics. Church statistics have long 
been thought of as necessarily uninteresting and well- 
nigh valueless. This ought not to be. Church statistics 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 19 

constitute the bookkeeping of the Church and good hook- 
keeping is quite as essential to a successful organization 
and administration of the Kingdom interest as it is to our 
great business enterprises. No important commercial firm 
would think of getting along with poorly kept, unreliable, 
and imanalyzed records. During the past few years, 
churches have improved much in this matter. Statistics 
have been gathered more extensively, and more carefully. 
They have been subjected to close scrutiny and analysis. 
The results of such study of statistics have been tabulated, 
charted, and rendered fit for use in a larger way than they 
have ever been before. Something of the trained skill and 
the scientific accuracy of the professional statistician has 
been devoted to the study of data concerning the Church. 
The more we know about the sources from which the 
Church recruits its membership, the more we come to see 
the importance of the educational activities of the Church 
as recruiting agencies. The more we know about the leak- 
ages through which those who are the Church's own go 
out to join the army of the unchurched, the more we come 
to appreciate the educational activities of the Church as 
conservation agencies. In general, the most enduring 
successes of the Church can be traced back to some effi- 
cient educational activity; its most glaring failures are 
quite as often due to educational inefficiency and neglect. 
Occasionally people fear that the emphasizing of reli- 
gious education will lead to spiritual coldness and life- 
less formality. Such fears are certainly quite groundless. 
Coldness and formality exist in the Church, not because 
of educational activity, but because of the lack of it. Does 
a live and efficient Sunday school put a spiritual damper 
on the church with which it is connected? Does the Sun- 
day-school teacher whose heart is burning with love for 
her pupils and zeal for their spiritual welfare, go inevitably 
to the overburdened "suspended roll" of the church? 



20 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

Spiritual emotion, sane and enduring, is best attained 
under the careful and patient nurture of the child by godly 
parents and wise ? consecrated teachers, rather than in some 
sudden revival experience of maturity. The best religious 
emotional life is an educational product. This is not to 
say that there is no divine element in it. Education is the 
instrumentality used of the Spirit for a divine work of 
grace in the heart. The spiritual growth that is develop- 
mental and gradual is just as wonderful, just as super- 
natural as any. Jesus "grew and waxed strong, filled with 
wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." True 
Christian nurture is a divine process of regeneration, in 
which God uses a human instrumentality for the salvation 
of souls. The Holy Spirit is quite as truly in the educa- 
tive process as he is in methods more sudden, spectacular, 
and mysterious. 

Statistics show that at least sixty per cent of all addi- 
tions to the Church are brought about primarily through 
the Sunday school. This one educational agency of the 
Church is worth more, as an evangelizing power, than all 
the other agencies of the Church put together. This cannot 
be due to any superiority of the Sunday school over the 
other agencies of the Church in matters of organization, 
equipment, and financial support. The Sunday school is 
notably weak and neglected in the matters named. It is 
due to the marked responsiveness of childhood and youth 
to religious influences of the educational type. The fact 
that the Sunday school, handicapped by such grave limita- 
tions, is yet the primary recruiting agency of the Christian 
Church, is an indication of what might be accomplished if 
the religious educational agencies of Protestantism were 
adequately organized and efficiently administered. 

Chart No. 1 represents the people brought into 
church membership through the Sunday-school activities 
in a typical small church compared with the number 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 21 

that are brought into the Church through all other 
sources. 

Chart No. 1 

ADDITIONS to the: CHURCH 






r o. 









4%\ 



PER CENT 8 3 17 ^J> 

Chart No. 2 is based on a study in a church of two 
hundred members. It is typical of a large number of 
the smaller churches. In many churches the Sunday 
school is the primary point of contact with the com- 
munity. 

Not only the largest number of recruits for the Church, 
but the most valuable recruits are secured through the 
educational activities of the Sunday school. It is gener- 
ally true that the people of the church's membership who 
are the best workers and most generous givers are those 



22 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

who have been brought up from childhood under the 
tutelage of the Church. There are occasional exceptions, 
but only enough to demonstrate that the rule is all but 
universal in its application. 

The most enduring additions to the Church are gained 
through educational activity. It has been demonstrated 

Chart No. 2 

CONTACT with COMMUNITY 



SUNDAY 
SCHOOL 

WITH 

OTHER 

AGENCIES |SUNDAY 

"SCHOOL 

ALONE 



I 



OTHER 
AGENCIES 



35 50 i5 

PER CENT 

that of the converts brought into the fellowship of believers 
through the customary revival methods, eighty-seven per 
cent fall away in five years. Of the converts brought into 
the Church through the Sunday school and the pastor's 
communicant class, forty per cent fall away in five years. 
In one case thirteen out of a hundred converts are to be 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 23 

found in the Church after five years; in the other case 
sixty out of every hundred are still found faithful after a 
like period of time. In the matter of securing an enduring 
attachment to the Christian faith, the educational method 
is more than four times as efficient as the revivalistic 
method. 

Xo reflection on revivals is intended. They have been 



Chart No. 3 



AGE" CONVERSION 



AGES 

6-23 



IG 



14 



12 



10 



e 2 



13 



15 



17 



8G3I 
PERSONS 



18 



13 



SO 



SI 



22 



!23 
124 



I2S 



26 

| a j288 9 



w . 



■ B H B < B B W ■ ■ B B ■ B I I K H ■ 



greatly used of God in the evangelization of the world, 
and ought to have a place in the economy of the Church ; 
but careful analysis of their results would indicate that 
they have either been unwisely managed, or that their 
relative importance is not so great as has been supposed. 
The evanescent character of the customary tabernacle 
revival may be due to both of the causes suggested. A 



24 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

satisfactory method of planning, conducting, conserving, 
and financing revivals has not yet been evolved. The 
product has been defective because the methods were 
faulty. It is also doubtless true that many groups of 
Christian believers have come to rely too exclusively upon 
the revival for the extension of the Kingdom. 

Chart No. 3 on page 23 is an illustration of how 
church statistics carefully gathered, thoroughly analyzed, 
rightly interpreted, and properly charted contribute to an 
understanding of the importance of religious education. 
Statistics were gathered as to the age at which each of these 
8631 persons were converted. The numbers along the tops 
of the vertical lines indicate the ages, those along the bot- 
toms of the lines the actual number of cases at each age. 
That is at six years of age forty-three persons out of the 
8631 were converted; eighty-seven persons were con- 
verted at seven years of age; 146 at eight years of age, 
and so on. It will be noted that the number of conver- 
sions rises steadily with advancing age until the age of 
sixteen is reached; with the exception of slight declen- 
sions at thirteen and fifteen. Later studies of conversion 
tend to show modifications of the results here tabula- 
ted. It is probably true that conversions at the present 
time occur most frequently at an age younger than sixteen. 
The figures here given were obtained from questions to 
adult people as to the age at which they were converted, 
hence are based on what was true a generation or so ago. 
Studies of actual conversions at the present time seem to 
give results differing as I have indicated. However, these 
minor differences do not concern us in the present discus- 
sion. The results here tabulated proclaim in unmistakable 
terms that the period of life reaching from the age of eight 
to the age of twenty-five is God's and nature's time for the 
grounding of the individual in religion. In this study of 
over eight thousand conversions, not one occurred after the 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 25 

age of twenty-nine years. A thoughtful consideration of the 
facts pictured in this chart raises more questions than we 
can well consider here. Seven times as many conversions 
take place at the age of sixteen as at the age of twenty-six. 
Does this mean that the adult is seven times as hard to 
win for the Church as the youth of sixteen? Does it mean 
that while we were winning one person twenty-six years of 
age we might have won seven boys and girls sixteen years 
of age? The curve of conversion, beginning at the age of 
six, sw r eeps upward to the age of sixteen, then downward, 
disappearing at twenty-nine. If we count the conversion 
curve as extending from six to twenty-six, the maximum 
occurs exactly in the middle of the curve at sixteen. For 
which side of this curve are the hymns, the worship, the 
sermon planned? For the service of which side of this 
curve does theological education fit young men? These 
questions are not suggested in a spirit of destructive criti- 
cism, but in a spirit of constructive criticism. The writer 
is not pleading for less earnest and less extensive efforts to 
reach adults, but for more earnest and more extensive 
effort to reach children and youth. Some conversions do 
occur in middle life, some even in old age, and we should 
never cease our efforts to turn the lives of the unregenerate 
Godward; but we ought not to neglect that part of life 
when the soul is most responsive to religious influences, 

It is well to note here that conversion in the case of a 
child or youth reared in a Christian home, taught by 
Christian parents, nurtured in a Christian church, is not 
the same kind of experience as that of an adult who has 
lived long in willful rebellion against God. The conversion 
experience of the former is developmental; that of the 
latter is apt to be cataclysmic. Conversion in the former 
case is the responsive unfolding of a soul to the influence 
of God as a flower blossoms through the nurture derived 
from the soil, moisture, and sunshine which have minis- 



26 



THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 



tered to it from the beginning. Conversion in the latter 
case is the turning again homeward of a prodigal soul long 
absent from the Father's house. Why anyone should be 
suspicious of the developmental type of conversion is hard 
to understand. If the finding and reading of a fragment 

Chart No. 4 

DOMINANT ACTIVITY 

ACQUISITION 
EXPRESSION 
MEDITATION 



EARLY LIFE- MIDDLE LIFE-LATER LIFE 




(This chart represents the general psychic activities in 
their comparative prominence at various periods of life. 
Our religious educational program should be brought into 
harmony with these underlying facts of the psychic life of 
the individual.) 

of the gospel by a man of pagan faith in central Japan 
was used of the Spirit to turn the soul of the finder from 
darkness to light; is it unsafe to believe that the Word 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 27 

taught to a child, from its earliest years by godly parents 
and teachers, can be used in the same manner? 

This span of years from the age of six to the age of 
twenty-six is the educational period of life. Here is a sig- 
nificant parallelism. The opening of the life to educational 
influences and its responsiveness to influences leading to 
conversion keep pace with one another. They w r ax and 
wane together. As the life of an individual begins to take 
on its fixed habits, begins to be less responsive to educative 
agencies, the probability of conversion begins to grow less. 
These facts are an indication of the primary importance 
of the educative agencies in the spiritual processes leading 
to conversion. 

2. Statistics concerning juvenile delinquency and 
adolescent crime. Prevention is better than cure in 
spiritual matters quite as truly as in physical matters. 
Preservation is better than rescue as a working goal for 
the Christian Church. It has just been seen that religious 
education holds an important place among the agencies 
influential in securing a vital religious experience. Now 
the author wishes to consider religious education as an 
agency of spiritual conservation. The spiritual waste of 
our civilization is appalling, for there is no loss so deplor- 
able as the waste of misspent lives. How to turn the foot- 
steps of childhood and youth away from danger paths, is 
the problem of problems. Secular education will not ac- 
complish the desired end. Formal instruction in morals 
will not suffice. There must be the culture of the deepest 
and most controlling faculties of the soul, the religious 
instincts and capacities. There has been a distinct turn- 
ing of public-school teachers, truancy officers, social settle- 
ment workers, of all who have been interested in the 
spiritual welfare of childhood and youth, and who have 
tried to stem the tide which carries young life so strongly 
toward that which is evil — there has been a turning of all 



28 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

these to the Church. They have said, "We must have 
your help; the task is yours, as well as ours." The more 
we find out about the causes of juvenile delinquency and 
adolescent crime, the more apparent is the need for a re- 
ligious educational program which will conserve the 
precious young life of the race. 

Chart No. 5 on page 29 is based on a study of 17,453 
cases of juvenile delinquency and adolescent crime. 
The numbers along the base indicate the ages at which a 
first crime was committed. The numbers at the right 
show the number of cases of first crime occurring at each 
age. The upper curve indicates the crime tendency in 
boys, the lower curve the tendency in girls. At eight years 
of age 160 boys and 150 girls out of this total of 17,453 
committed their first crime. The number of boys increases 
rapidly with advancing age and reaches its maximum at 
sixteen. The number of girls increases slowly, reaching its 
maximum at fourteen, but totaling hardly one fourth that 
of the boys. This chart has many lessons for the parent 
and the religious teacher. It shows the greater peril which 
surrounds the growing boy compared with that which 
menaces the growing girl. It is a significant fact that of 
these 17,453 cases not one boy committed his first crime 
after twenty, and not one girl after twenty-one. The boy 
or the girl who has been brought through the adolescent 
period without serious stumbling is comparatively safe. 
Here is the period of life where the Church, the home, and 
the State ought to unite in a far-reaching and potent pro- 
gram of protective preservation. 

Here is another striking parallelism. The period of life 
most open to educative influences and the period of life 
subject to greatest spiritual perils are conterminous. The 
opening of the life to evil influences and the responsiveness 
of the life to educative agencies keep step with one another. 
The decline of the responsiveness to educational stimuli is 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 



29 



also the time of lessening spiritual peril. Can you see why 
young lives go astray? Not chiefly from a perverseness 
that deliberately refuses good and chooses evil ; not chiefly 
because of the "old Adam" within; but because the educa- 
tional influences about the life are not good but bad. 

3. The development of a psychology of religion. 
A scientific study of religious phenomena has been de- 

Chart No. 5 

YOUTH *™ CRIME —boys 

17453 CASES """"GIRLS 



2000„ 




8 9 10 II 



12 13 14 15 16 

YEARS 



17 18 IS 20 21 



veloping for about twenty years. The results of a validly 
scientific investigation of the religious consciousness have 
been of no small importance in the creating of a wider and 
deeper interest in religious education. I speak of a "val- 
idly scientific" investigation of the religious consciousness, 
because a certain school of religious psychologists do not 
seem to be entitled to the standing of scientific investi- 



30 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

gators. Yet this is the school which makes the largest 
claims to scientific method. I am persuaded that a psy- 
chology of religion based on a materialistic conception of 
life and consciousness can never produce any results of 
much value. It maintains an agnostic attitude toward too 
many of the facts of religion. I believe a true psychology 
of religion must begin with the fact of a self-revealing 
prayer-answering God. It must recognize that man can 
personally experience God as a forgiving, guiding, helping 
Reality. It must recognize the belief in a future life as 
based on psychic fact and not make it a dim and uncertain 
hypothesis. However, there have been all along religious 
psychologists who recognized spiritual realities, and the 
movement is certainly in their direction to-day. The sig- 
nificant thing for us is this, that the more we know about 
the origin and development of the religious consciousness, 
the more important the educational agency is seen to be. 
Psychology has shown the momentous importance of the 
religious impressions of early childhood. The child soul fs 
iw wax to receive and marble to retain." What goes into 
the first impressions of life goes into all of life. In times 
of great spiritual stress men speak the tongue learned on 
their mother's knee. The early impressions of life enter 
into all our daily acts, deeds, and thoughts in a way we can 
hardly comprehend. Like the tracks in the cement walk, 
made when the mortar was soft, these early impressions 
are not erased by the passing feet of the after years. It is 
the task of the home and the Church to see that religious 
impressions are engraved deeply and abundantly on the 
child soul. Genetic psychology has taught that the re- 
ligious consciousness can be initiated under proper stimuli 
long before the child can read the family Bible or under- 
stand the preacher's sermon. 

The term "adolescent" does not appear in any encyclo- 
pedia published over twenty-five years ago. Psycholo- 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ,<u 

gists have not only named this important period of life, 
they have helped us to understand it better than our fore- 
fathers did. As we have come into a better understanding 
of this somewhat tumultuous period of life, we have come 
to appreciate the importance of careful educational pre- 
paration for its physical and psychic changes, and for 
patient educational guidance through them out into the 
broader fields of adulthood. 

4. A better understanding of the nature and laws 
of heredity. Our knowledge concerning the way in which 
the achievements of humanity are handed on from genera- 
tion to generation has been extended and clarified by the 
discovery that there are two distinct channels through 
which one generation transmits its accomplishments and 
its characteristics to the next succeeding generation. One 
of these channels has been named racial heredity . Through 
it any people transmit to their descendants their physical 
characteristics and psychic capacities. The color of the 
hair, the shape of the face, the brain capacity of the cra- 
nium, these are all transmitted from one generation to 
another through physical parenthood. 

The other channel is called social heredity. Through it 
any people transmit to their descendants their language, 
social customs, religious ideals, and ceremonials. Social 
heredity transmits the heritage of one generation to an- 
other through the educative agencies, the teaching pro- 
cesses. The teachers of any generation are the spiritual 
parents of the generation following. Education is the 
golden chain which binds in unity and gives permanence 
to the achievements of the race, a primary factor used of 
God for the progress of humanity onward to that 

"Far off divine event, 

Toward which the whole creation moves." 

Part of the social heritage of the race is unconsciously 



32 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

taught by each generation to the succeeding one. Children 
learn to speak the language of their parents with little or 
no intentional help from adults. As they grow to ma- 
turity, they absorb much of the thought and many of the 
general attitudes of the community in which they are 
reared. There is then, an intentional and an uninten- 
tional instruction given by each generation to the succeed- 
ing generation. Much that might profitably be omitted 
from the heritage of the race is carried from one genera- 
tion to the other by more or less unintentional teach- 
ing. The best elements of the racial heritage are either 
imperfectly transmitted by unintentional teaching, or are 
entirely incapable of being so transmitted. The child will 
not learn to speak properly, or to be an eloquent master of 
his mother tongue without careful and purposeful instruc- 
tion. He will master barely enough of the technique of 
speech to meet his more primitive needs. He will not be- 
come an accomplished musician or artisan without long 
and patient educational guidance. Religion is the highest 
attainment of the race and of all the constituents of our 
social heritage, it is most poorly transmitted by the acci- 
dental and unintentional mode of education. The re- 
ligious instinct is deeply planted in man's nature, but un- 
guided it quickly assumes grotesque forms. Communities 
characterized by neglect of religious educational activity 
soon show unmistakable signs of reversion toward pagan- 
ism. If the religion of Jesus is to conquer the earth, it 
must be efficiently taught by each generation of Christians 
to the succeeding generation. This teaching task is 
worthy of the best of our time, the best of our effort, the 
best of our prayers. Our generation must not squander its 
religious heritage, neither ought it to lay it away in a nap- 
kin. It must transmit the spiritual treasures of the centu- 
ries undiminished and enriched to the coming generation 
if it would perform its part in the eternal plan of God. 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 33 

5. Developments in secular educational science. 

Education is both an art and a science. Education as a 
science has developed greatly within the past ten years. 
Secular education is rapidly passing out of the epoch of 
personal opinion supported, in part, by individual ex- 
perience and, in part, by pure theory. It is coming into 
the epoch of scientific measurements, established standards, 
and demonstrated results. Secular educational scientists 
are fairly well agreed on several principles that are of no 
small importance in religious education and which magnify 
the importance of religious nurture. Their researches 
lead them to think of education as the developing of the 
inherent capacities of the child. Proper educational stimuli 
cause the growth of that which lies within the child's soul, 
in embryo. All the characteristics of the grandest human 
personality the world has ever known, lay once within 
some child soul, as the oak lies in the acorn. Education 
created nothing, at all, it was only the agency which stimu- 
lated growth and nourished it. There is no question, but 
that God has implanted in every normal child soul vast 
capacities for religious growth. The development of these 
capacities is dependent on nurture and proper stimulation. 
The infinite Father is not willing that any of these little 
ones should perish, and they need not if we will but do our 
part. As the acorn needs the contact of the moist soil and 
the warmth of the sunlight in order that it may grow into 
an oak; so the child soul needs to be brought into contact 
with the religious heritage of its ancestors through the warm 
and vitalizing instruction of a parent or teacher that it may 
grow into a religious consciousness. But perhaps some one 
will say, "Where does God come in; if the genesis of religion 
is as you say?" Everywhere! In the love tones of a 
mother's prayer; in the Bible story the teacher tells. He is 
not confined to the sudden, unexpected, and mysterious 
things. He is the All and in all. Do not understand me to 



34 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

say that God is confined to the agencies seen of men. 
Mysticism is the soul of religion and I consider it the 
greatest of all realities. The soul of God touches the 
child soul and the gracious hand of the Christ is laid on 
little children as of old. Let me say it once again; God 
will do his part, if we do ours. We should not put forth 
our fear of interfering with the divine prerogatives as an 
excuse for being slothful servants. 

Secular educators are fairly well agreed that the child 
consciousness comes into existence unmoral, but with 
an irrepressible tendency to react toward environment 
with some sort of activity. The child's acts leave each its 
record. They are built into the warp and woof of character. 
If bad things to do are convenient and good things to do 
hard to find, the child will do bad things and become bad. 
Religious education must not only have a course of 
information but a program of activities. One is as im- 
portant as the other. The including of expressional activi- 
ties in the religious educational program is a sign of the 
growing appreciation of the educational agencies of the 
church. Through their researches in secular education 
j these investigators have helped church people to see more 
' clearly the importance of their own educational task. 

6'. More extensive knowledge concerning the great 
religions of the world. Non-Christian religions have 
been studied more intensively and more sympathetically 
during the past half century than was ever the case be- 
fore. Able scholars have turned their attention toward the 
history of these religions and toward the analysis of their 
systems of belief and the discovery of the sources of their 
power over the hearts and minds of men. It has been 
noted that every religion which has spread over large 
areas of the earth, and maintained itself through centu- 
ries, has had a powerful teaching ministry. With the 
possible exception of Mohammedanism educational 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION S3 

agencies have been the primary implements for propa- 
gating these faiths. Wandering teachers carried Bud- 
dhism from India through the vast stretches of China 
and to far-away Japan. Without its great educational 
centers, like that at Cairo, Mohammedanism would have 
become long ago but an incident of history. The marvelous 
racial tenacity and religious individuality of the Jew is due 
to the fact that in ancient times the Hebrew people learned 
to carry their religious treasures in their hearts and to 
teach them diligently to their children. There is not a 
pagan religion of the present day, nor of antiquity, which 
does not, or did not have its profoundly educative rites for 
children and youth. Often the only distinctively educa- 
tional activity in these pagan communities of antiquity 
was religious. 

Is Christianity different from all other religions in this 
respect? There are no reasons for believing that it is. 
Indeed, there are many reasons for believing that the 
teaching agency is more fundamental in the Christian 
economy and more essential to the success of the Christian 
program than is the case with any other religion of the 
world. The practice and last instructions of its Founder 
would seem to settle that. It is also indicated by the most 
outstanding facts of Church history. 

7. Experiences in great reform movements. The 
task of a great reform movement, like that of national 
prohibition of the liquor traffic, is in many respects analo- 
gous to the task of the Christian Church. Each must 
win to a new allegiance individuals who have been an- 
tagonistic or indifferent to the ends sought. The ultimate 
triumph of each is dependent to a large degree upon wide- 
spread, thorough, and persistent educational propaganda. 
In the end, most great reforms have had to turn away, in 
a measure, from forensic disputations in courts and legisla- 
tive halls and to lay a surer foundation for ultimate success 



36 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

through the process of teaching the principles involved in 
the controversy to children and youths. This was certainly 
the case in the temperance movement. The first efforts 
for prohibition more than a half century ago were quickly 
and strikingly successful. Many states passed laws pro- 
hibiting the liquor traffic. Complete victory seemed just 
at hand. But no reform can safely outgrow its own 
educational preparation. The right foundations had not 
been laid. A period of reaction began. Prohibition was 
repudiated in all but one or two states. When a great 
reform begins, succeeds for a while, and then fails, further 
progress is doubly difficult. The unclean spirit comes back 
with seven others more evil than himself, and the last 
state of the nation becomes worse than the first. That the 
prohibition cause should have ultimately won after this 
initial failure is proof of its inherent justice and truth. Its 
triumph is also a striking demonstration of the efficacy of 
the methods used. After the tide of reaction had swept 
nearly a dozen states back into the liquor-licensing prac- 
tice, the temperance leaders saw the necessity for a wider 
and deeper educational program for the movement. They 
turned to the children. Temperance instruction was 
introduced into the public-school curriculum. Books on 
physiology had a chapter on the circulation which ended 
with a section telling of the effects of alcohol on the heart, 
lungs, and blood vessels; another on the nervous system 
ending with a section on the effects of alcohol on the brain, 
spinal cord, and nerves; and so on to the end of the book. 
Many public-school teachers taught these temperance 
lessons with much enthusiasm. The sellers of dissipation, 
usually wiser for their own generation than the children of 
light, were caught napping. They understood very well 
the art of political manipulation whereby legislatures and 
courts were induced to do their will; but the instruction 
of children was a means of propaganda beyond their range 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 37 

of experiences. Perhaps they, for a time, thought of the 
new venture 'as a harmless diversion for the temperance 
"cranks." But they soon became alarmed and began 
vigorous action looking toward the banishing of the 
temperance instruction from the public schools. They 
were strong enough to accomplish their designs in many 
states; but the seeds of their undoing had been scattered 
in fertile ground. They could not uproot the teachers' 
sowing. When the boys and girls who had received this 
temperance instruction, in their youth, grew to manhood 
and womanhood, they put the liquor dealers out of busi- 
ness. 

Christianity is the greatest of all reform movements. It 
includes them all. Its goal is the establishing of the 
Kingdom of God on earth. In this sublime enterprise, 
man is a colaborer with God. Among the instrumentalities 
which God Jbas given man for the accomplishment of man's 
part of the task, none is greater than education. Religious 
education has the stamp of the divine approval resting 
upon it. God commends it in his Word. "Train up a child 
in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will 
not depart from it." He cooperates with it and gives it 
fruit in due season. He uses it in the transformation of 
individual lives, in the exalting of community and national 
ideals. 

Leaders in some departments of church activity see this 
more clearly than leaders in other departments. People 
interested in missions saw it some ten years ago and 
organized missionary education. The fruits of the instruc- 
tion they have been giving is beginning to bear fruit. 
Many a local church might profitably give educational 
activities a larger place in its program. If the children were 
properly cared for, there would be less need for feverish 
anxiety lest not enough adult and paying members be 
gotten into the church to keep it off the rocks of financial 



38 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

insolvency. The author is not pleading for less extensive 
and less earnest efforts to reach adults, but for more exten- 
sive and more earnest efforts to hold children. Some 
churches doubtless neglect childhood because of a feeling 
that work with children is a slow way of building up a 
church. They feel that the fruits of such labor are long 
delayed. They feel that a boy of ten will not be of very 
much help to the church for ten or fifteen years, at least. 
Their feeling is doubly erroneous. The Church full of 
children, and which children love is a Church honored of 
the Christ. In the second place it is by no means sure that 
the man who joins the Church at thirty-five will reach the 
goal of efficient church membership before the lad who 
joins at ten. Educational preparation is necessary in both 
cases but the boy learns faster than the man. 

8. Recent demonstrations of the power of educa- 
tion to transform national life. The seventy year 
period which was characterized by a growing apprecia- 
tion of the importance of religious education has witnessed 
several cases in which the ideals and characteristics of an 
entire nation have been changed in a marked degree 
under educational influences. Statesmen have come to 
appreciate as never before the importance of education in 
national and international matters. Something of this 
deeper appreciation of secular education has been re- 
flected upon religious education. 

Twenty years under the leadership of American educa- 
tors has done a hundred times more for the Philippine 
Islands than four hundred years of military occupation 
accomplished. In less than two generations, Japan 
leaped across the gulf which separates modern constitu- 
tional government from medieval feudalism. Changes 
which took hundreds of years in other nations were accomp- 
lished by Japan in fifty because in the first case an edu- 
cational system had to je slowly and painfully evolved, 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 39 

whereas in the case of Japan it was taken over ready-made 
from neighboring nations. Even more wonderful results 
are being wrought in China. Modern education never had 
a harder task than it faced twenty years ago in China. 
The Chinese had an educational system of their own. It 
was hoary with antiquity, and they almost worshiped it; 
but it has met complete defeat in its battle with twentieth 
century educational methods and ideals. 

Education has been used so uniformly to bless mankind 
that it is hard for us to think of it in any other role; but 
the most colossal illustration of the power of education to 
transform the life and thought of a whole nation is of 
another kind. In Germany education was prostituted to 
unholy ends by a ruling military caste. Through a wonder- 
fully efficient school system this military caste imposed 
upon the German people a conception of the state inher- 
ently pagan and immoral. That education could have 
turned the naturally kind-hearted German people into 
devastators more cruel than Apaches, seems hard to believe. 
That the masses of Germany should have been almost 
completely educated away from their own interests into 
blind submission and unthinking loyalty to a system so 
contrary to all the currents of human progress, is amazing. 
And yet the military caste of Prussia did this by working 
for some forty years through the German schools — did it 
so effectively that millions of their victims were w T illing to 
die for the organization that had victimized them. Edu- 
cation did it. Venerable, saintly looking professors taught 
that the ethics of Jesus have nothing to do w T ith the rela- 
tionships, of nations, that the ideal for the nation is not 
righteousness but power, that war is the highest expression 
of civilization, that a nation too weak to protect itself has 
no rights a strong nation is bound to respect. The world 
had never before seen the prostitution of education to 
such selfish and unholy ends. 



40 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

In these after-war days we are very naturally asking 
ourselves whether the power which wrought such fun- 
damental and far-reaching perversions may not be used as 
effectively in establishing truth, righteousness, and brother- 
hood among men. We know what to teach. God has 
shown us by his Son. We can build a system of education 
as efficient as Germany ever saw. The nation which will 
really take Jesus as its Guide, Model, and Teacher, educa- 
ting its children and youth in the universal brotherhood 
and self-sacrificing service which he taught, in harmony 
with which he lived, and in defense of which he died, will 
bring about mightier transformations for good than the 
German educational system did for evil. Such a nation will 
fulfill the sublime admonition once uttered by a Hebrew 
prophet but never fulfilled by the Hebrew nation; "Arise, 
shine; for the light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is 
risen upon thee." 

9. A changed conception as to the scope and 
function of religion. For some years there has been a 
growing tendency to identify religion with the whole of life. 
Going to church, reading the Bible, saying prayers — these 
acts are just as religious as they ever were, but they are no 
longer looked upon as comprising the major part of relig- 
ious activities. All a person does, thinks, says, is the ex- 
pression of a religious life within or an evidence of the lack 
of it. The scope of things considered to have religious 
significance has been greatly enlarged. This enlarged con- 
ception as to the field of religion has resulted in a somewhat 
changed conception of the function of religion. Our fore- 
fathers didn't express it quite that way, but somehow we 
feel that they thought of religion as primarily a means of 
getting one into a heaven after the present life has ended. 
Religion is an essential for the largest and truest living 
in the present existence. It is the duty of everyone to 
serve the Lord diligently here and now and to help set up 



THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 41 

his Kingdom in the world. That is making the best pre- 
paration for the life in the world to come. Such a view 
is not, at all, the result of any failing faith in the hereafter 
of the soul. In the Father's house are many mansions 
and if it were not so he would have told us. 

It will be readily seen that this enlarged conception, as 
to the function of religion, in the life that now is, tends to 
magnify the importance of education. So long as religion 
was thought of as functioning primarily for the life to 
come, it was easy to think of its being but slightly related 
to the slow developmental processes of education. Many 
of our forefathers believed that we are fitted for heaven by 
one divine act, experienced at conversion; that this act 
takes place without much dependence on any educational 
preparation; and that it needs no after-conversion 
educational program to insure its permanency. It is easy 
to see how they came to think of education as having a 
very subordinate place in the processes of individual sal- 
vation. The religious educator of to-day does not nec- 
essarily differ from his forefathers in any of the essential 
conceptions of the redemptive process. He does, however, 
see God working in a wider range than his forefathers did, 
in the developmental agencies leading up to conversion 
experiences and in the enlarging and sustaining powers 
which a right educational program throws around the new- 
born soul when the Church is doing her task in an efficient 
manner. 

10. The cessation of theological controversies and 
a turning of the religious mind of the times back 
to the teachings and example of Jesus. The phrase 
46 back to Christ" has been used in a rather loose way, 
and some unfortunate conceptions have come to be asso- 
ciated with it. It names, however, a certain tendency 
of modern religious thought which has received no other 
designation. Little proof is needed to convince the 



42 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

person of average intelligence that the age of theological 
controversy amongst Protestant sects is fortunately at an 
end. We have, in a large measure, ceased to argue about 
Jesus, and have turned once more to a reverent study of 
his teachings, acts, and to the message of his life. We 
find that he was the great Teacher, who, by his precepts, 
example, and final instructions emphasized the import- 
ance of the educational functions of religion. The world 
must be taught to know all he taught, all he did, all he 
felt. The world must know him, not merely a definition 
concerning him. So great is he, so high, so deep, so in- 
finite, that the task must begin at the cradle and go on 
through the whole of life. 



CHAPTER II 

Inadequacy of the Customary Educa- 
tional Agencies of the Church 



CHAPTER II 

Inadequacy of the Customary Educational Agencies 
of the Church 

The growing appreciation of religious education which 
has been sketched in the preceding chapter has been 
accompanied by a growing conviction that the customary 
educational agencies of the Church are inadequate to the 
task which has been assigned to them. If religious educa- 
tion is one of the most important agencies given to the 
Church for the evangelization of the world, the Church 
ought to organize, equip, and maintain the best possible 
system of religious education. Most people of our country 
who care for religious things and at the same time think 
logically about them, already agree as to the primary 
importance of religious education as an agency for world 
evangelization. We must not suppose, however, that the 
organization, equipment, and maintenance of a thoroughly 
satisfactory system of religious education will immediately 
appear without persistent and strenuous effort on the part 
of all who are interested in this great cause. The tradi- 
tional economy of the Church is exceedingly hard to 
change. Many fundamental changes of program and of 
emphasis must take place before the educational function 
of the Church is given proper attention and opportunity 
commensurate with its importance. For many years 
church buildings have been constructed, church organiza- 
tions planted, and ministers educated without much 
thought for the teaching function of the Church. It will 
take time, patience, and tact to bring about changes in 
these matters. 

Two things ought to be accomplished before a church 

45 



46 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

undertakes to supplement its educational program by the 
organization of a week-day church school. First, a con- 
siderable portion of the congregation ought to be won to 
a deep conviction of the importance of religious education 
and to enthusiastic support of that branch of church work. 
The organization of these schools is a task involving some 
difficult problems, and success is rendered doubtful unless 
the pastor and his workers have behind them a fairly 
united and interested constituency. In the second place 
the congregation must be brought to see the inadequacy 
of the present-day educational agencies of the Church. 
Facts thought to be useful in securing the first of these 
desired ends have been presented in the preceding chapter. 
The presentation of facts useful in securing the second is 
the aim of this chapter. Pastors wishing to introduce 
week-day religious instruction into their church programs 
would do well to present as much evidence as possible on 
the two points already suggested, and to carry on such an 
informational program as will bring these evidences home 
to as many members of their churches as they can reach. 
1. The time at present available for religious in- 
struction is inadequate and its distribution is un- 
pedagogical. If we count the whole Sunday-school hour 
as possessing educational value, the maximum time pro- 
vided for Protestant children through this agency would 
be only fifty hours a year. It is doubtful whether the 
average Sunday school secures more than a half hour of 
really educational work each Sunday. This would make 
the total time for a year twenty -five hours for each child 
making a perfect record of attendance, summer and winter. 
As a matter of fact, most Sunday-school children do not 
attend Sunday school more than half of the time. Thus 
we see that the time allowance for Protestant religious 
education is meager, at best. The parochial schools of the 
Roman Catholic Church provide for two hundred hours 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 47 

of religious instruction a year in their curriculum plans. 
Some Jewish children are receiving as much as three hun- 
dred and thirty-five hours a year, through the Hebrew 
week-day schools and Sunday schools. It is possible that 
some of us, as Protestants, believe that our religion has a 
deep and appealing power not possessed by any other. This 
faith in our own religion, however, gives us no warrant for 
believing that it is less dependent upon educative agencies 
than the other religions of the world; neither does it justify 
our subjecting it to the heavy handicap indicated in the 
figures just quoted. A true faith in our religion as the 
light of the world and in its divine origin and continuous 
divine control, spurs the believer on to more vigorous 
action; it does not lull him into a state of slothful ease. 

Moreover, our meager time allowance for religious in- 
struction is so unpedagogically distributed over the year 
as to render any valuable results doubly difficult of attain- 
ment. Half -hour lessons a week apart is a poor teaching 
arrangement. Continuity of instruction under such a 
system is well-nigh impossible. Many educators believe 
that a few weeks of continuous and intensive training is 
far more fruitful than fifty-two weeks of Sunday-school in- 
struction. If religious education is to be efficient it mint , 
possess unity and plan. It will never accomplish much 
if the recitation periods are so far apart that most of the 
instruction takes the form of unrelated items of informa- 
tion. Minds of children are not able to carry over a line 
of thought from one recitation period to another when 
the interval separating them is a seven-day interval. It 
can be done with pupils of high-school age who make 
outside preparation for their recitations, but even there 
it is not regarded as a desirable arrangement, by most 
educators. 

This matter of time for religious instruction is a con- 
sideration of basic importance. There can be no substi- 



48 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

tute for the necessary time provision for instruction. 
Trained teachers will not remedy matters. The better 
the teacher is prepared for her task, the more important 
it is to furnish her the necessary time for doing her task 
properly. The Sunday-school teacher who comes into her 
class without having made any preparation for the teach- 
ing of the lesson is sometimes glad to hear the superintend- 
ent's bell announcing the close of the recitation period; 
the competent and conscientious teacher never is. Thor- 
ough and comprehensive lesson material will not relieve 
the time limitations resting on the Sunday school but 
make them more apparent. Good equipment has exactly 
the same effect. Maps, pictures, charts, handwork, ster- 
eoscope views — the use of all these requires time, and 
they would be provided more generally by Sunday-school 
authorities if there was time enough to use them in the 
Sunday-school recitation period. So we see that the time 
problem is fundamental and touches many other problems 
of religious education. The best results from other lines 
of religious educational improvement will be seriously 
impeded until we solve this time problem. "More time 
for religious education" ought to be the slogan of religious 
educators everywhere. Twenty-five hours a year for 
religious education and one thousand hours a year for 
secular education is not a just ratio. 

2. Protestant religious education is dependent 
upon a teaching force inadequate as to numbers, 
and often imperfectly prepared for the task. 
Sunday-school teachers, as a whole, are doing a noble and 
unselfish service. That some are ill-prepared for their work 
is more the fault of the Church than the fault of individual 
teachers. The Church has not made provision for a 
teaching force spiritually consecrated and professionally 
efficient. Teachers possessing the two qualifications named 
are not numerous enough "to go around." Ten thousand 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 49 

pastors and Sunday-school superintendents are saying 
'What shall we do for teachers?" There is no mystery in 
the situation. God has not failed to keep any promise of 
his. Churches, like the foolish virgins, have found their 
lamps gone dry in the hour of need; that is all. It is 
time for Protestant churches to take the matter of teacher 
training seriously. No course of study that can be mas- 
tered by a ten-year old child in a few weeks will longer 
suffice for the training of religious teachers. There must 
be thorough mastery of the Bible, the understanding of 
child psychology, the acquiring of pedagogical skill. No 
suggestion that these are the only qualifications for the 
successful teaching of religion, is intended. It is not even 
suggested that the qualifications named are the most 
important. A deep spirituality, a sincere love for child- 
hood and youth, a conscience tender in all matters of 
personal responsibility, these are elements of primary 
importance in the personality of the true teacher of reli- 
gion; but even these qualities can be developed by the 
right kind of training, and are often lacking because the 
training given to the prospective teacher of religion was 
meager, fragmentary, and accidental. Full, unified, and 
purposeful preparation of its teachers would be a policy 
of much wisdom on the part of the Church and the teachers 
have a right to expect it of the Church. 

3. Most of the educational agencies of the Church 
are quite destitute of any real supervision of teachers 
and instruction. The Sunday-school superintendent 
presides at the opening exercies of the school and at the 
close. Sometimes he looks after such matters as the 
securing of substitute teachers for teacherless classes. But 
these activities do not constitute supervision in the public- 
school sense of the term. A real supervision is that in 
which there is carefully gathered information as to how 
the teacher prepares for her recitation periods, how she 



50 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

presents the lesson materials to her classes, and what 
results she attains through her classroom instruction. 
After gathering this information, the superintendent is in 
a position to commend the teacher for her excellencies 
and to help her to overcome any defects which may have 
become apparent to the eye of the skilled educational 
specialist. Whenever this ideal is presented to Sunday- 
school superintendents, they are very apt to say, "You 
can't have such supervision as that with a volunteer 
teaching force." That may be true; but a good many 
considerations go to show that the lack of such super- 
vision, in the Sunday school, is often due to the superintend- 
ent's inability to give it, rather than to the teachers ' 
unwillingness to receive it. Superintendents are not to 
blame, however, for the supervising of instruction is a 
highly technical task, and demands special training. Occa- 
sionally churches are fortunate enough to secure volunteer 
leaders who possess the requisite preparation for the edu- 
cational work of the Church; but we must expect most 
of our churches to be without really adequate supervision 
of their educational agencies until such a time as the 
employment of directors of religious education becomes 
the established custom of the Church. 

4. The educational agencies of the Church receive 
inadequate financial support. If the valuation put 
upon anything by a people, can be judged by the amount 
of money they are putting into it, we must conclude that 
religious education is not highly esteemed by Americans. 
Lead pencils, cigar boxes, chewing gum, almost everything 
you can name, rank far above religious education as com- 
modities for which our money is spent. When we compare 
the amount of money expended for the religious nurture 
of children and youth with the amount expended for 
tobacco, automobiles, travel, and the "movies," it makes 
us feel that, after all, our civilization is essentially mate- 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 51 

rialistic, and hedonistic, lacking in any high conception of 
spiritual values. We have not found the pearl of great 
price, nor can it be said that we are seriously seeking it. 

That religious instruction should receive just considera- 
tion and adequate financial support from the American 
people, as a whole, is too much to expect at our present 
stage of spiritual attainment, as a nation; but we would 
seem to be justified in the expectation that, within the 
Church, itself, something like a just appreciation of the 
matter should prevail. It is discouraging to discover that 
in this regard, matters are much the same, in the Church, 
as they are "in the world." The average church pays 
more for janitor service, more for a choir, more for light 
and heat, than it does for the religious instruction of its own 
children. The fact is, the conscience of the Church has 
never been developed in this matter. In other matters 
the conscience of the Church has been cultivated. With 
regard to the foreign-mission task, there is a growing 
conscience. Intelligent church members no longer refuse 
to give to the foreign-mission enterprise, if they are worthy 
the name of Christian. They see that it is a Christian 
duty to do so. But with regard to the teaching function 
of the Church, there is no such consciousness of obligation 
as has been developed in the matter of missions. Even 
those who are beginning to appreciate the importance of 
the educational task of the Church, are, for the most 
part, still laboring under the delusion that it can be accom- 
plished very cheaply. We must change this condition. 
Church agencies of first-rate importance must not continue 
to receive seventh-rate consideration. 

5. The educational agencies of the Church are, 
in many cases, poorly housed and inadequately 
equipped. The rooms dedicated to religious instruction 
by Protestant churches may be classified as good, bad, 
indifferent, and scandalous. Even the best and most 



52 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

expensively equipped church-school rooms are apt to be 
but poorly adapted to educational work. The properly 
lighted, satisfactorily ventilated, artistically decorated 
schoolroom, with abundant blackboard space, comfortable 
individual desks securely screwed down to the floor and 
of a size suited to the pupils who are to occupy them — 
these are some of the products of many years of public- 
school evolution. They are just as essential for an efficient 
church school as they are for an efficient public school; 
yet the Church has been slow to appreciate their value 
and slower still to avail itself of their use. There has been 
great waste of money, in fitting up church-school rooms, 
and in putting up church-school buildings, because the 
people in charge did not know what kind of rooms and 
what kinds of equipment were best suited to educational 
uses. 

Many Sunday schools long ago overflowed the quarters 
provided for them. In such schools, teachers and pupils 
have gone out in quest of some place where they could 
hope for that seclusion and quiet so essential to any large 
educational accomplishment. You will find them in. all 
sorts of unexpected places. They may be found up in 
the belfry tower, where the janitor never comes, and the 
cobwebs hang thick on rough walls and gaunt rafters. 
They may be found down in dark and damp basement 
rooms where patches of plastering have fallen off the ceiling 
and other patches hang in dangerous insecurity over the 
heads of Primary tots. Yet many of these same churches 
have spacious auditoriums, cushioned pews, stained-glass 
windows, and collection plates of solid silver. It is strange 
why some churches, in everything pertaining to the adult 
life of the church and community, manifest extreme care; 
and in everything pertaining to the welfare of the child life 
of the church and community, manifest extreme neglect. 

6. The educational agencies of the Church have 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 53 

not yet been furnished with an adequate and other- 
wise satisfactory course of study. Most denominations 
have attempted to create such a course; some of them have 
tried it repeatedly; and yet no course yet completed has 
continued to be satisfactory very long. The practice, 
almost universally used, of issuing Sunday-school lesson 
material in printed slip and quarterly pamphlet form, is 
unpedagogical and expensive. It is time to discard it 
for a system of religious education textbooks suited to 
the needs of various ages of Sunday-school pupils. Biblical 
material will doubtless continue to be the subject matter 
of religious education, and yet it is to be hoped that no 
sweeping exclusion of so-called "extra-Biblical" material 
will be attempted. The Bible will be most effectively 
taught when its marvelous range of spiritual truths are 
not only taught in the Bible setting but reenforced by 
illustrations from history, current events, nature, art, and 
literature. We do not need to go outside the Bible for 
religious truth, "the opening of thy words giveth light"; 
but that these truths may be rightly apprehended and that 
they may be most fruitful in the upbuilding of character, 
they need to be taught in harmony with the laws of peda- 
gogy, not in defiance of them. 

7. The educational agencies of the Church provide 
inadequate expressional activity. Impression without 
corresponding expression is apt to be transient, imperfect, 
wasted, sometimes injurious. What would you think of a 
manual-training teacher who expected his pupils to become 
skilled in the use of plane and saw by sitting in their seats 
and listening to his abstract explanations as to how these 
tools should be used? How much would they learn under 
such instruction? If the teacher had the tools in his own 
hands and actually did the work he was trying to teach, 
the pupils would learn a good deal more, but even then 
they would learn nothing perfectly. Little hands would 



54 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

be itching to get hold of every tool as soon as it was laid 
down and nothing but the sternest kind of discipline would 
prevent their doing it. Nature points out the true learning 
process by implanting within the child an irrepressible 
tendency to do things. Much of our religious education 
has been on the abstract information basis. We need to 
remember that our best efforts at educating the young are 
wasted, in a large degree, unless we give the children an 
opportunity to carry our information over into action. 
We must parallel our curriculum of religious instruction 
with an equal program of religious expression. The 
noblest religious sentiments, if they be denied expression, 
degenerate into weak sentimentalities. The providing of 
a program of expressional activities fitted to the religious 
educational needs of children and youth is an unsolved 
problem. Some Sunday schools get in some such expres- 
sional work at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other special 
occasions, but this is not enough. We need a program for 
the everyday life of the young people in their homes and 
in their school associations. Perhaps the nearest approach 
to the thing needed has been accomplished by the Boy 
Scouts with their daily good turn standards. 

8. The educational agencies of the Church are 
inadequately correlated. The educational task of the 
Church is one task and the educational program must be 
one program if it is to function properly. The educational 
agencies of the Church have grown up independently of 
one another. Each is under its own leadership and plans 
its own program of activities. In most churches there is 
no overhead organization superintending them all, and 
bringing them all into harmony. It is little wonder that 
these agencies get in one another's way, try to cover the 
same ground, overlook certain important phases of the 
whole educational task, and overemphasize others. What 
would you think of a high school with a half-dozen in- 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 55 

structors, each one of whom wandered, at will, over the 
whole field of academic studies, chose such materials as he 
saw fit, held his classes at such a time as he could get, 
recognized no supervisory authority, and never entered 
into consultation with his fellow instructors? Yet this 
picture scarcely overdoes the matter in its attempt to 
portray the conditions existing among the educational 
agencies of many churches. Correlation of the educational 
activities of the Church will mean unity of plan and 
efficiency of execution through a division of labor. 

9. The educational agencies of the Church are 
inadequately distributed. Much of the spiritual 
illiteracy of American children and youth is the direct 
result of a remarkably faulty distribution of religious 
educational agencies. Anyone who has ever surveyed the 
Sunday schools of a town or city and compared them with 
the public schools as to their location, attendance, and 
other matters will see, at once, what is meant by the term 
"faulty distribution" as here used. At least three phases 
of faulty distribution are manifest to anyone who has 
given thought to the matter. 

(1) Small Towns and the Open Country. Careful 
computation seems to indicate that there are some ten 
thousand small towns and country communities, west of 
the Mississippi River, which have no religious educational 
facilities whatever. There are a good many east of the 
Mississippi also. In the same region it is also probable that 
there are ten thousand communities which are trying to 
support more Sunday schools than are necessary. Hun- 
dreds of villages have three or four small struggling 
schools where one strong school could do the work more 
efficiently and more economically. One town of 1600 
people, in a western state, has one excellent public school 
and fourteen poor Sunday schools. In the same state 
whole counties can be found practically destitute of 



50 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

religious educational agencies. There are probably enough 
Sunday schools in most of our western territory to cover 
the whole field fairly well, if they were properly distributed. 

This breaking down of our religious educational program 
in the country places of the land is a serious matter. The 
country churches feed the city churches, just as the springs 
and brooks of the highlands feed the rivers of a continent. 
If the springs fail, the rivers will go dry. We need a 
redistribution of responsibilities among Evangelical Pro- 
testant denominations, for our rural communities, some- 
what like that which exists in many foreign-mission fields. 
The interest of the Kingdom demands it. 

(2) Cities of from 2500 to 25,000 Population. In cities 
of the class indicated a striking uniformity of religious 
educational conditions is found. Such cities usually have 
from a dozen to forty different Protestant denominations. 
By far the greater part of these have only one church in 
the town. Some of the stronger denominations, in the 
larger cities of this group may have three or four churches, 
but in most cases all but one of them are small home- 
mission enterprises. Now, nearly every one of the denomi- 
nations, when they located in the city, looked upon the 
whole city as a parish. The denominational leaders sought, 
therefore, a central location, because such a site would be 
most easily accessible from all parts of their parish. So it 
has come about in hundreds of towns that all the stronger 
Protestant churches are located near the center of the city, 
often nearly all of them within a stone's throw of one 
another. But out in the suburbs of such a town you will 
often find large areas without any convenient educational 
agencies, and in other sections the buildings set apart for 
Sunday-school purposes are small, poorly equipped, 
temporary shacks. The large churches in the city center 
have the buildings and equipment necessary to care for 
all the children in the city, but they can't get the children; 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 57 

the small and struggling churches of the city outskirts are 
grappling with the educational tasks of the Church under 
a heavy handicap. In such a city, you will find the largest 
and finest public-school buildings where the most children 
are, but the largest and best equipped Sunday-school 
rooms where the fewest children are. The trouble with 
us is, that we have been seeing the religious instruction of 
children and youth as a denominational problem ex- 
clusively; we must come to see that it is also a community 
problem in the solution of which denominations must 
cooperate with one another. 

(3) Cities of 25,000 Population and Over. In cities of 
more than twenty-five thousand people, a condition 
exactly opposite to that just described is apt to appear. 
A down-town church can draw adult life sometimes from 
considerable distances, but the distance from which it can 
draw the child life of the region is very much less. No 
church, of the ordinary type, can prosper long without 
contact with the children. The first effect upon a church 
beginning to grapple with down-town conditions is seen in 
the blighting of its Sunday school. As the city grows, an 
exodus of churches from the city center to the outlying 
districts begins. When once this movement begins, it 
develops rapidly. The churches all tend to go at once. In 
a few years the center of the city, once overchurched, 
begins to be underchurched. Like an aging tree the 
municipality begins to decay at the heart. In time, vast 
areas of densely populated territory in the central portions 
of the city are found to be without adequate church 
facilities of any kind. There are such areas in several of 
our great cities where more than fifty thousand people 
have no Evangelical Protestant church agencies, whatever. 
As a rule, these central areas of our larger cities are either 
without Protestant educational agencies, or supplied with 
only a meager equipment of mission enterprises. Evan- 



58 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

gelical Protestant influence in all of our great cities is 
small; in some it is practically negligible. If our Evan- 
gelical Protestantism fails in the country places and in the 
great cities of the land, the battle will be lost for us. It is 
encouraging to know that in some of our cities the 
Protestant churches are coming back to the abandoned 
city task with a ministry such as the foreign-speaking 
multitudes who dwell at the city's heart sorely need. Such 
churches are finding these brethren from other lands 
responsive, in a marked degree, to the touch of helpful 
Christian fellowship, and their children, especially, respond 
with quick enthusiasm to the personal contact with a true 
teacher of religion. 

10. The educational agencies of the Church are 
inadequately dynamic. Machinery is of no use unless 
there is power to make it go. We ought to labor to remedy 
every one of the inadequacies heretofore named; but if 
we are successful in the nine cases cited and fail in the 
tenth we shall really accomplish but little. It is "not by 
might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah." 
If the Church is to have power it must keep right with 
God. If we, the Protestant Christian bodies of America 
have become guilty in that we have multiplied our divisions 
until we have become insensible to the sin of schism; ' if 
we have rent the body of Christ over trifling matters; if 
we have not measured up to the splendid ideals of universal 
equality and brotherhood taught in the life and precepts 
of our Lord; we must repent. We won't have God's power 
until we are right with God. If things are not going right 
with the Church, it is futile for us to pray to God as if 
the fault rested with him; we should pray and act as if 
something were wrong with us. A New Testament writer 
speaks of the "hindered prayers" of those who are not 
living as the "heirs of the grace of life." An Old Testament 
general who had lain all day prostrate upon his face, in 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 59 

piayer to Jehovah, was rebuked for that kind of praying 
which throws the responsibility for man-made failures 
back upon God. "And Jehovah said unto Joshua, Get 
thee up; wherefore art thou thus fallen upon thy face? 
Israel hath sinned; yea, they have even transgressed my 
covenant." 

As a result of the inadequacies mentioned, the results of 
religious educational activities are unsatisfactory. We 



Per C 



ENT 



Chart Xo. 6 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL ENROLLMENT 

ANDERSON IltDIAM 



too 

90 
80 
70 
60 
50 
40 
30 
20 
10 



Ages 

must not congratulate ourselves too highly on the fact 
that more than sixty per cent of all additions to the Church 
are brought in by means of the Sunday school. Our 
exultation in this matter might prove to be a good deal 
like the exultation of a schoolboy over the fact that he 
received a mark of forty per cent in an examination in 
which another schoolboy received twenty per cent. The 
apparently good showing of the Sunday school may not 



1 II 1 1 i "" 

~T~j~ ^ .- J~7Ti [.J; I 



60 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

be due so much to the fact that it has done so well, as to 
the fact that other agencies of the Church have done so 
poorly. A religious educational survey of a typical city 
of twenty-five thousand people throws some light on this 
matter. More extensive studies, in many other places, 
tend to prove that the results here set forth are approxi- 
mately true for the country as a whole. 

The numbers along the bottom of Chart No. 6 represent 
the different ages of children and young people in the 
homes surveyed. The numbers at the left indicate the 
percentage of children and youth of each age enrolled in 
Sunday school. Of the children three years of age, fifteen 
per cent were enrolled in the Sunday school, or other reli- 
gious educational agencies. Thirty-three per cent of the 
children four years of age were enrolled in some religious 
educational organization. It will be noted that in this 
particular town the churches were not succeeding in get- 
ting in one hah of the children until the age of ten. From 
ten to twelve they were holding one half of them, or a little 
more; but beyond twelve they were holding less than half. 
The Sunday schools and other educational agencies of 
the city were reaching something like forty per cent of 
the children and youth of the community. Studies in other 
places would seem to indicate that this would be a generous 
estimate for the country as a whole. Some have estimated 
that in New York City not more than twenty-five per cent 
of the children and youth are receiving any religious 
instruction, worthy of the name. In our country, there is 
a vast army of children and youth growing up in spiritual 
illiteracy. Some investigators have estimated the number 
of them as high as twenty-seven millions. These young 
people, grown to maturity, without the development of 
their God-given religious faculties, go on to swell the ranks 
of another vast army fifty-eight millions strong, the army 
of America's unchurched population. The most beautiful 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 61 

and wonderful thing in the world is the unfolding life of a 
child in its physical, intellectual, and spiritual capacities. 
The most sadly tragic thing, in the world, is for a human 
being to be born, to live, and to die without ever having 
brought to fruition more than an infinitesimal part of the 
inherent soul capacities with which the Creator had 
endowed the living spirit within. In multiplied millions of 

Chart No. 7 

How SlWDAY SeffGOLsAsE REAeblBftTtmR CoiSTITVEKCY 







69m 



LjVxiegoX ^- m 



K toW*\w $*«£««* S*** * 



souls that tragedy is going steadily on because of the fact 
that unfolding lives are spiritually neglected. 

A more detailed study of the same survey is shown in 
Chart No. 7 above. It was desired to know how the 
different denominations were meeting their responsibilities 
in the matter of reaching with their educational programs 
the children and youth who were dependent on them for 
religious nurture. The two lines following the name of each 



6% THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

denomination, represent all the children and youth froni 
three years of age to twenty-two years of age who are 
members of families belonging to that denomination or 
members of families who say they prefer that denomina- 
tion. The upper line represents the per cent of such 
children and youth enrolled in Sunday school; the lower 
line represents the per cent of such children and youth not 
enrolled in Sunday school. 

Of the Methodist constituency, forty-five per cent were 
enrolled in Sunday school, fifty-five per cent were not. 
The Lutherans were making the best showing with seventy- 
one per cent enrolled in Sunday school and twenty-nine 
per cent not enrolled. This finding is probably generally 
true. It has been stated that, of all Protestant denomina- 
tions, the Lutherans are most successful in holding their 
own children and youth. An interesting result is seen in 
the case of the "No preference" people. These were the 
people who said they had no preferences as to denomina- 
tion. In most cases, it may be presumed, this lack of 
preference for any particular denomination was due to a 
general indifference to religious matters. People who are 
deeply interested in religion are practically always members 
of some church. Even those who have only a passing 
interest in religion, usually have a denominational prefer- 
ence at least. In these "No preference" families, eighty- 
seven per cent of the children and young folks were not 
enrolled in any Sunday school. If the home has no interest 
in religion, the probability that the children of that home 
will be reached and held by the educational agencies of 
the Church, is slight, indeed. We must add one more 
inadequacy to the already long list. The religious educa- 
tional agencies of the Church receive inadequate support 
and inadequate cooperation from the homes of the children 
enrolled. 

It will be agreed, that the goal of the Protestant churches 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 63 

should be the gathering into their religious educational 
organizations of all the children and youth that Protestant- 
ism can rightfully claim; and the bringing of all these 
young people into church membership through the inspira- 
tion and nurture of the Church. If the Protestant churches 
were attaining this goal, they could rightfully consider 
their religious educational agencies as one hundred per 
cent efficient. How near are we to attaining it? Of the 
forty per cent of children and youth reached by the educa- 
tional agencies of the Church in the average community, 
what portion is ultimately won for the Church? The best 
information available seems to show that only about forty 
per cent of these young people become members of the 
Church. This means that only about sixteen per cent of 
the developing life in the average American community is 
reached by the educational agencies of the Church and so 
held and influenced as to make a definite decision for the 
Christian life. Our educational agencies are only about 
sixteen per cent efficient. There are many American com- 
munities where the fruits of this comparative failure are 
plainly seen, many in which you will find five adult people 
outside the Church for every one you will find inside of it. 
What is necessary for the putting of the religious educa- 
tional activities of Protestantism on the right basis? First 
of all a revival of religious education in the home. "And 
these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon 
thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy 
children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy 
house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when 
thou liest down, and when thou risest up.'' These verses 
give us God's commandment for the establishment and 
maintenance of religious education in the home. The 
religion to be taught must, first of all, be upon the hearts 
of parents, at the very center of life and of all its phases 
of conduct. They cannot teach religion unless they have 



64 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

it, themselves. But even a godly piety, important and 
fundamental as it is, does not fully suffice; there must be 
ordered and purposeful instruction. "Thou shalt teach 
them diligently unto thy children." Religious matters 
must not be "taboo" in the conversations of the house- 
hold, but must be their central theme. Thou "shalt talk 
of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou 
walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when 
thou risest up." Religion the last thing at night, the first 
thing in the morning, by the fireside in the hour of relax- 
ation, out on the busy thoroughfares of daily toil, this is 
the ideal which God held up before his chosen people. 

When the angel announced to Zacharias the coming of 
the great forerunner of the world's Saviour, he did not 
say that the preparation of the world for the coming One 
should be through some great economic revolution, nor 
through some political upheaval which should set the 
Jewish people free from Roman bondage, nor through some 
reform in the Jewish Church v^hich should free it from 
Sadducean control; he spoke of a reform in an institution 
far more fundamental than Church or State, of a religious 
revival in the home. And he shall "turn the hearts of 
the fathers to the children." That the father should be 
the prophet and priest of the household is God's plan; and 
matters can never be right in the home, in the Church, 
in the nation, until the father fulfills his God-given office. 

In the second place, the educational agencies of the 
Church must be brought to a state of adequateness and 
efficiency by the better development of the agencies already 
in existence and the organization of new ones, as needed. 
We must keep right on with our plans for teacher training, 
organized classes, departmental organization, graded les- 
sons, and other Sunday-school improvements. At the same 
time, we must not be deceived into thinking that these 
improvements of existing educational agencies will suffice . 



INADEQUACY OF THE CUSTOMARY AGENCIES 60 

We must look forward to the organization of supplemen- 
tary religious education on a large scale. We shall need 
Vacation Bible Schools, Community Training Schools, and 
Week-Day Church Schools. 

In the third place the community life must be reorgan- 
ized so as to aid the formation and conservation of religious 
ideals. Commercialized amusements which neutralize the 
efforts of the Christian home and the Christian Church to 
ground the young in morality and godliness, must give 
place to forms of amusement which are void of offense, 
purposeful, and ennobling. Our children and youth are 
getting through the commercialized "movies," a concep- 
tion of life which is unreal, low, and often vicious. How 
can it be otherwise when night after night there is paraded 
before them one almost continuous stream of dime novel 
trash, but made more potent than any novel ever was, by 
the power of pictured action. It is time for the American 
people to act vigorously in this matter and to express in 
law^s that cannot be evaded their conviction that shooting, 
suicides, illegitimate births, and maudlin love situations 
are not proper subjects for children. 



CHAPTEE III 

Various Attempts to Supplement the 

Customary Educational Agencies 

of the Church 



CHAPTER III 

Various Attempts to Supplement the Customary 
Educational Agencies of the Church 

The inadequacy of the customary educational agencies 
of the Protestant churches is quite generally recognized. 
There can be no logical denial that the results of our 
religious educational enterprises are far from satisfactory. 
These facts began to be generally admitted some fifty 
years ago. For more than forty years, earnest efforts 
were made to correct matters by the improvement of 
educational agencies already existing within the Church. 
These efforts are still being made, but, during the past 
ten years, there has grown up a widespread movement 
looking to the improvement of our educational activities 
through the organization of agencies supplemental to those 
already in existence. This new movement has grown out 
of the conviction that the existing agencies for religious 
education, however much they may be improved, can 
never be made efficient and adequate instruments for the 
whole educational task of the Church. Some of these 
supplementary organizations had their origin consider- 
ably more than ten years ago, but their development has 
been very largely within that period. 

It is the object of this chapter to examine briefly some 
of the more important of these supplementary religious 
educational agencies and to attempt an evaluation of them 
with a view to determining their fitness to become perma- 
nent parts of the unified program of Protestant religious 
education, which it is hoped may soon be set up by the 
cooperation of Protestant denominations. Some of the 
educational movements named in the following list are 

c>9 



70 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

fairly well organized either denominationally, or interde- 
nominationally, or both; others have scarcely any organiza- 
tion, at all, but exist as somewhat widely varying and 
independent activities, in churches widely separated. 
Agencies for Supplementary Religious Education. 

1. Daily Vacation Bible Schools. 

2. Summer Schools of Religion. 

3. Community Training Schools. 

4. Occasional Classes. 

5. Parochial Schools. 

6. Pastor's Communicant Classes. 

7. Pre-School Chapel Services. 

8. Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. Classes. 

9. Public-School Credits for Outside Bible Study. 
10. Week-Day Church Schools. 

Nine of the items in this list will be considered here, 
the tenth is reserved for fuller treatment in the chapters 
which follow. 

1. Daily Vacation Bible Schools. The Daily Vaca- 
tion Bible School movement began in New York City a 
little more than ten years ago. Its growth has been steady 
and comparatively rapid. The number of pupils enrolled 
in Presyterian Vacation Bible Schools, during the summer 
of 1920, was over fifty thousand. They were enrolled in 
some four hundred schools. The International Daily Vaca- 
tion Bible School Association reports over fifteen hundred 
schools in the country which reported during 1920 to their 
organization. There are a good many schools which do 
not send in reports to any denominational or interdenomi- 
national organization; so it seems certain that the number 
of children who received religious instruction through this 
educational agency, during the summer of 1920, was well 
over two hundred thousand. Thirteen years ago there 
were only nineteen schools in the country with a little 



VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLEMENT AGENCIES 71 

over five thousand pupils instructed by seventy teachers 
in four different cities. 

The Vacation Bible School program consists of Bible 
instruction, the learning of hymns, lessons in patriotism, 
health instruction, handwork of various kinds, and different 
forms of recreational activities. The schools usually run 
for five weeks, five hours a day, from about 9.00 a. m. 
to 11.40 a. m. though the time arrangement varies consider- 
ably. This form of religious instruction has certain very 
distinct advantages. It comes at a time of the year when 
the children are free from public-school duties, when 
church buildings are used less than at any other time of 
the year, and when many college students and public- 
school teachers are available for this type of work. Vaca- 
tion Bible Schools have been most numerous and most 
largely attended in the more densely peopled foreign- 
speaking communities of our larger cities. They are just 
as capable of rendering valuable service in our American 
communities, in our smaller cities, and even in country 
districts ; but their value is just beginning to be appreciated 
in the last named places. 

A Vacation Bible School, of standard length, is equal 
in instruction time to a full year and a half of Sunday- 
school attendance and its pedagogical value is of even 
greater comparative value than the greater time for instruc- 
tion would indicate. The continuous and closely correlated 
instruction of the Vacation Bible School gives it, hour for 
hour, greater pedagogical value than that possessed by 
Sunday-school instruction. Nearly all Protestant denomi- 
nations now recognize the Vacation Bible School as an 
integral part of their educational system, and make pro- 
vision for it accordingly. Courses of study are prepared, 
handbooks of information published, and much other 
informational literature issued. 

It seems certain that the Vacation Bible School has not 



72 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

only come to stay, but that it is destined to fill a far 
greater place in the educational program of the Church 
than it has yet attained. It is a distinct help toward the 
solution of the religious educational problems of Protes- 
tantism. And yet it is not, in itself, a solution of these 
problems. The existing educational agencies of the 
Church, with the Vacation Bible School added, will not 
make an adequate equipment for religious education. The 
Vacation Bible School has certain definite limits beyond 
which it cannot go. Five weeks is near the maximum 
amount of vacation time children can be expected to give 
to these schools. The idea of the Vacation Bible School 
is capable of being carried into other types of religious 
instruction. Several Vacation Bible Schools have resulted 
in continuation schools which carry the Vacation Bible 
School instruction on throughout the year. Such a school, 
however, ceases to be a vacation school. Such continua- 
tion schools have resulted in Baltimore, Maryland; Grand 
Rapids, Michigan; and elsewhere. In Baltimore seven of 
such schools have been running for five years, with over 
five hundred pupils enrolled. In cases like this, the Vaca- 
tion Bible Schools have evolved into schools of week-day 
religious instruction, and should be so classified. 

2. Summer schools of religion. These schools are 
somew^hat similar to the Vacation Bible Schools but are 
entirely distinct as to origin, and differ in important 
respects as to curriculum and aims. They seem to have 
sprung up independently and approximately simultan- 
eously at widely separated places in our country. The 
oldest and best known of these schools grew out of a sum- 
mer Bible school at Elk Mound, Wisconsin. A children's 
department was organized in this Bible school at Elk 
Mound, primarily as a practice class for those adult mem- 
bers of the school who were preparing for Sunday-school 
teaching. In time this training department became so 



VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLEMENT AGENCIES 73 

important, for its own sake, that it evolved into a religious 
day school for children. The idea spread rapidly and 
became known as the "Wisconsin Plan." 

At about the time that the Wisconsin schools were 
getting well under way a similar system of Summer 
Schools of Religion was growing up around the head of 
Delaware Bay. Rev. Abraham L. Latham was the leader 
of this movement as Rev. H. R. Vaughn had been the 
leader of the experiments at Elk Mound. During the 
summer of 1920, the following churches, in this eastern 
group, had Summer Schools of Religion with pupils en- 
rolled as indicated: 

Name of Church Pupils Enrolled 

1. Third Presbyterian, Chester, Pa 419 

2. Trinity Lutheran, Chester, Pa 70 

3. Italian Presbyterian, Chester, Pa 75 

4. Olivet, Moore, Pa . 27 

5. Darby Presbyterian, Darby, Pa 102 

6. Orphanage, Wallingford, Pa 48 

7. First Presbyterian, Johnstown, Pa 146 

8. First Presbyterian, New Kensington, Pa 58 

9. Presbyterian, Benton, Pa 40 

10. West Presbyterian, Wilmington, Delaware 158 

11. Woodland Ave. Presbyterian, Camden, N. J 64 

12. Warren Ave. Presbyterian, Saginaw, Mich 58 

13. First Presbyterian, Midland, Mich 104 

Total 1369 

It will be noted, from the above table, that this type of 
school is being adopted by churches at some distance from 
the place where it originated. In these schools, handwork 
is confined to such activities as serve to illustrate the 
Scripture lessons, and there is very little of any land. The 
emphasis is on Bible study, with a good deal of memorizing. 
The schools are graded after the public-school model; 
many of them have high-school classes and some a kinder- 
garten grade. The length of term and hours is practically 
the same as in the Vacation Bible Schools. The pastors 



74 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

who have tried these schools seem unanimous in their 
opinion that they are a great help to the church. They 
usually say that a much higher type of work is obtained 
in these schools than seems to be possible in the Sunday 
schools. The Church first named in the above list received 
one hundred and twelve members at a recent communion 
service; a good evidence of the efficiency of this type of 
religious education. 

This type of school has the same advantages and limita- 
tions as the Vacation Bible Schools. They are practically 
Vacation Bible Schools with a somewhat greater emphasis 
on Bible study than the typical Vacation Bible School and 
a practical elimination of all activities which do not have 
direct bearing on Bible instruction. 

3. Community training schools. These schools are 
organized interdenominational attempts to secure better 
trained teachers for the Sunday schools and other educa- 
tional agencies of the Church. They usually reach, how- 
ever, some who are not preparing for the teaching of 
religion, especially in their classes for general Bible study. 
The sessions are usually held one night in the week for a 
term of twenty-five weeks. This evening session is divided 
into two recitation periods with an assembly period 
between. The subjects taught include, in most schools, 
such matters as Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence, 
Religious Pedagogy, Bible, Sunday-School Organization 
and Administration, Religious Education in the Home, 
and Church History. 

Community training schools have been organized in 
Maiden, Massachusetts; Braintree, Massachusetts; Hyde 
Park, Massachusetts; Lowell, Massachusetts; South 
Boston, Massachusetts; Evanston, Illinois ; East Chicago, 
Indiana; East Orange, New Jersey; Somerville, New 
Jersey; Evansville, Indiana; and many other places. 
There is no doubt that they have deen distinctly helpful 



VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLEMENT AGENCIES 75 

wherever given a fair trial. Some of the leading religious 
educators of the country have taught in them, and com- 
munities where they have been organized have witnessed a 
marked improvement in the Sunday-school instruction. 
In some instances these training schools have widened the 
scope of their efforts so as to include the preparation of 
teachers for week-day church schools. These training 
schools meet the needs of one particular phase of the 
religious educational problem. They help to recruit the 
teaching force and to fit it for more efficient service. They 
are not a direct attempt to reach the multitudes of children 
and youth spiritually untaught, but do make that problem 
more hopeful of solution by promising a way by which the 
teaching force for this larger undertaking may be secured. 
They ought to be organized everywhere as rapidly as com- 
petent instructors for them can be secured. Fuller descrip- 
tions of these schools than is possible here can be secured 
from any of the schools named. 

4. Occasional classes. In a number of communities, 
of some of our Eastern states, the custom has prevailed of 
gathering all the children of the community, who could be 
induced to come, into an instruction class for a period 
varying from one week to four or five weeks, usually just 
before Easter. Several denominations have united in the 
movement, in most cases. The pastors have taken turns 
in addressing the children. Such a form of religious in- 
struction doubtless does some good, but its general result 
is apt to be small. It isn't a real school. The pupils haven't 
enough to do. The succession of one pastor after another, 
as teachers of the class, is an unpedagogical arrangement. 
The time during which the class is kept up is not long 
enough*' to allow of any real educationally constructive 
work. Communities ought not to be content with this 
form of supplemental education unless they cannot possi- 
bly secure a better one. 



76 THE WEEK Dx\Y CHURCH SCHOOL 

5, Parochial schools. Practically the only Protestant 
denomination that depends on the parochial school for the 
religious instruction of its children is the Luthern denomi- 
nation. Among -Lutheran people these schools are not 
uncommon. There can be no doubt that the parochial 
school can be made to supplement successfully the Sunday 
instruction. There is abundant time for such a purpose, 
and the teachers are usually trained instructors. The 
possibility of the Protestant denominations, as a whole, 
turning to the organization of parochial schools as a solu- 
tion of their religious educational difficulties is so remote 
that it is hardly worth mentioning. The enrollment of a 
child in a parochial school means his elimination from the 
public school. Americans are well agreed that the public 
school is the bulwark of American democracy. The gather- 
ing of the children of the various denominations into 
parochial schools would mean that the churches would 
have to assume the burden of instructing them in secular 
studies as well as in religious subjects. The parochial 
school, for the reasons given, may as well be ruled out as 
a possible agency for the solution of Protestant educational 
problems. 

6. Pastor's communicant classes. Many pastors 
gather prospective Church members, especially those of 
younger age, into instruction classes, just previous to their 
admission into the Church. These classes vary in length 
from a few weeks to several months. There is no question 
concerning the great benefits derived from such instruction. 
The only strange thing about these communicant classes is 
the fact that a good many pastors fail to have them at all. 
They undoubtedly ought to be an annual feature of the 
Church program, and ought to be considered as an integral 
part of the educational system of every church. No 
pastor can afford to be without them. 

And yet the pastor's communicant class, important as it 



VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLEMENT AGENCIES 77 

is in its own sphere, ought not to be considered as making 
the educational system of the Church complete. The 
a ddition of a pastor's communicant class to the educational 
agencies, already existing in the various churches, will not 
solve the religious education problem. The educational 
task, of even a small church, is too large to be put on an 
efficient working basis by the small amount of time the 
average pastor can give to it. The unique opportunity 
of the pastor is, as has been suggested, in the preparation 
of prospective Church members for entrance into the 
Church. But there must be years of efficient teaching 
among the younger children, if the pastor is to have full 
communicant classes. 

Moreover, many pastors are quite unprepared for any 
large educational undertaking. Most of them love children, 
because of native tendencies in that direction and because 
of fellowship with the Master who loved them; but com- 
paratively few are competent to assume full and efficient 
leadership and supervision of the educational activities of 
the churches over which they are pastors. The typical 
theological training of the day is away from the child mind 
rather than toward it. Seminary education of the usual 
kind unfits young men for the teaching of children, rather 
than otherwise. Seminary professors are specialists in 
their chosen subjects; but the child psychologist is con- 
spicuous by his absence from the seminary faculty. Most 
pastors get along fairly well in their efforts to feed the 
sheep ; but in their efforts to feed the lambs they get along 
rather poorly. It is not their fault. In order to be an 
efficient pastor of children, a man must know the child 
and how to speak a language the child can understand. 
For a pastor really able to instruct children or supervise 
their instruction a knowledge of child nature is essential; 
a knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and the documentary 
theory of the Pentateuch is incidental. 



78 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

7. Pre-school chapel services. In a number of 
communities, pastors have organized chapel services, of a 
half hour or so, for school children before the opening of 
public school on some week day. The service is one of 
song, prayer, Bible stories, and drill on the catechism. 
Such chapel services for public-school children have been 
conducted in Ravenswood Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 
Illinois, for over eight years and have demonstrated their 
value. An efficient leader in such a service can do much to 
train his audience in worship and praise. A good service 
of this kind is not without educational value; but the 
amount of instruction which can be so imparted is quite 
limited. To depend upon a chapel service of the kind 
described for a full supplementing of the Sunday-school 
instruction would be like depending upon the opening 
service of a church school for instruction, and discarding 
all classroom work. Efficient and sufficient religious 
instruction cannot be given without grading, definite 
assignments of lessons, tasks to be done by pupils, and 
personal contracts between teacher and pupils in moderate 
sized classes. You can educate children somewhat, but 
not fully, en masse. 

The place for a chapel service, of the kind under con- 
sideration, is at the opening of a church school, where after 
the period of worship, praise, and mass instruction, the 
youthful congregation breaks up into classes for more 
intensive teaching specially fitted to the understanding 
and needs of the particular groups. We can get along with 
pulpit and platform instruction for adults; but in the case 
of children, we must have something besides if we are to 
do our educational tasks as they should be done. 

8. Y. M. C. A- and Y. W. C. A, classes. Both of 
these organizations have, of late years, inaugurated rather 
extensive plans for religious instruction, especially for 
young people of the 'teen ages. In 1918, the Y. M. C. A. 



VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLEMENT AGENCIES 79 

organized 3380 classes for boys, and there was in these 
classes an enrolled membership of 58,762. These figures 
do not include Y. M. C. A. classes for high-school boys and 
employed boys. These figures indicate that these organiza- 
tions are making contributions to the educational task of 
no mean proportions. Certain grave considerations, how- 
ever, make doubtful the expediency of giving over a large 
part of the religious educational task to these organiza- 
tions. Very few of the leaders of the organizations named 
have done any of the actual teaching. Their secretaries 
and assistant secretaries are not infrequently well trained; 
but in nearly all cases the multitudinous tasks of these 
officials have rendered it impossible for them to do class- 
room work. The teaching has been delegated, therefore, 
to volunteer teachers, some of whom were capable, some 
of whom were scarcely so. Instruction under the care of 
these two organizations has been of about the usual 
Sunday-school quality. There is a growing feeling that it 
would be unwise for the Church to hand over any con- 
siderable part of her educational task to any independent, 
or semi-independent organization. Instruction of the type 
under consideration has been wholly uncoordinated with 
the instruction given by the churches. If the Church must 
delegate a part of the educational task to outside organiza- 
tions, there ought to be, at least, some understanding so 
that the different courses of study will not be repetitious, 
out of chronological sequence, and contradictory as to the 
conclusions reached. Without any unity of plan, and 
carried on by noncooperating agencies, religious education 
will inevitably be chaotic, fragmentary, and inefficient. 
If the Church wishes to avail herself of the aid of the 
organizations named, there is a logical way to do it; 
namely, by assigning certain definite phases of the religious 
educational task to them, and holding them responsible 
for the doing of the task in a satisfactory manner. Under 



80 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

the loose arrangement which has prevailed up to the 
present, teachers of peculiar views have not infrequently 
gotten in. Sometimes the instruction of these teachers is 
directly opposite to what practically all the churches teach, 
but there was no way of checking them up and the mis- 
chief went on until the term ended or all the pupils stopped 
coming. The religious education of children and young 
people is too important for us to allow it to be done in any 
such slipshod fashion. 

9. Public-school credits for outside Bible study. 
This important religious educational movement is asso- 
ciated with the name of Dr. Vernon P. Squires, Dean of 
the University of North Dakota. In the fall of 1911, Dr. 
Squires suggested that the State Board of Education 
should provide a syllabus for Bible study in the high- 
school grades. This was done, and the teaching of the 
course of study as outlined was taken up by Sunday 
schools, Y. M. C. A. classes, and other organizations. 
Satisfactory work on the course was rewarded by high- 
school credits for the work accomplished. The idea 
quickly spread to many other states and assumed forms 
more or less modified. In some states the plan has been 
extended upward to the college and downward into the 
elementary grades. 

There are many reasons for believing that the plan 
ought to be inaugurated in every state of the Union, and 
ought to be so extended as to cover the whole field of 
religious education from the first grade up to, and through, 
the university. 

It is well to note that this movement is not one looking 
toward the creation of any new religious educational 
agencies. It aims to assist and inspire those already in 
existence by putting religious instruction on a basis where 
it is honored equally with other matters of study. It has 
proved a valuable aid to all of the educational agencies of 



VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLEMENT AGENCIES 81 

the Church now in existence, and would doubtless prove 
equally helpful to any new agencies that might be formed. 

Most of the nine different types of supplementary 
educational agencies already discussed have been found to 
be of value. Some have been found to be decidedly so. 
But none has seemed large enough and suggestive enough 
to be made the primary agency for the task. There is none 
that even gives promise of a possible development which 
would fit it to become the central and unifying plan for our 
whole religious educational system, though most of them 
could evidently be given places of considerable importance 
in such a system. The supplemental religious educational 
agency which gives largest promise of becoming such a 
central and unifying plan for an American system of 
religious education has been reserved for final mention in 
this chapter and for fuller treatment in the chapters that 
follow. 

10. The week-day church school. A week-day 
church school is one in which religious instruction is given 
on week days and for a term approximately parallelling 
the public-school year. The discussion of the different 
types of week-day church schools and the various problems 
connected with the organizing and conducting of them will 
be taken up in following chapters; here the author wishes 
to consider the relation of the week-day church school 
to the other supplementary religious educational agencies 
previously mentioned in the present chapter. The week- 
day church school possesses distinct advantages which 
make it well worthy of consideration as the central and 
unifying plan for an American system of religious educa- 
tion. In such a plan, the Vacation Bible Schools and 
summer schools of religion would logically become the 
summer sessions of the week-day church schools, with a 
course of study and expressionai activities which are 
closely correlated with the whole religious educational 



82 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

system. The community training school would be the 
teacher-training agency for the whole educational system 
of the Protestant Church. Occasional classes, and classes 
conducted by Y. M. C, A. and Y, W. C. A. organizations 
would be assigned some definite part of the educational 
task of the Church and held responsible for the accom- 
plishment of it in a satisfactory way, if it were felt to be 
desirable that the work be so assigned. Parochial schools 
as agencies of Protestant religious education would be 
eliminated. The pastor's communicant class would be- 
come a special and integral part of the educational program 
of the Church. The pre-school chapel service would 
become the opening service for the week-day church 
school and would furnish training in worship, praise, and 
Christian fellowship for all the pupils under the educational 
care of the Church. Public-school credits for outside 
Bible study is already an established practice in commun- 
ities where week-day church schools are now in operation. 
In Gary, one thirty second of the high-school course may 
be taken in the church schools. In Toledo, one sixteenth 
of the course may be in religious instruction. 

Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the organiza- 
tion of week-day church schools, in cooperation with the 
public schools, gives Lutherans and Roman Catholics an 
opportunity to escape the "double taxation" so distasteful 
to them. Under the new system, their parochial schools 
could give over the teaching of secular studies to the public 
schools, and give their attention wholly to the teaching 
of religious matters, thus becoming week-day church 
schools which cooperate with the public schools and cease 
to be competitors with them. In a number of communities 
this arrangement is already made and working satisfac- 
torily. In one of these communities fifty thousand dollars 
bad been appropriated by the Roman Catholic Church for 
the erection of a parochial-school building, but the plan for 



VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SUPPLEMENT AGENCIES 83 

the erection of it was abandoned because the authorities of 
the Catholic Church came to believe that the week-day 
school plan was preferable to the parochial-school plan. 
The week-day school movement is much further advanced 
among Jews than it is among either Protestants or Cath- 
olics. They have practically adopted it as the solution of 
their educational problems, and the parochial schools 
among them are dwindling in number and in attendance. 
It is evident that the week-day church-school idea gives 
promise of fitness to become an ail-American system of 
religious education. With its full development, we should 
have the public schools ministering to all the children of 
America and fitting them for citizenship in our great 
democracy; we should also have a closely correlated sys- 
tem of religious schools giving religious instruction to all 
the children of America in the fundamental truths and 
forms of worship of the particular faith to which they 
belong. 



CHAPTER IV 



Three Types of Week Day Church 
Schools 



CHAPTER IV 

Three Types of Week Day Church Schools 

Out of the experiments in week-day religious instruction, 
carried on in various parts of our country, three quite 
distinct types of week-day church schools have arisen. 
These types may be named as follows : 

1. The Denominational or Individual Church Type of 
Week-Day Church Schools. 

2. The Denominational Community Type of Week-Day 
Church Schools. 

3. The Interdenominational Community Type of Week- 
Day Church Schools. 

There is considerable variation among the various church 
schools, and the schools of no given community are exactly 
like those in any other community. Certain similarities, 
however, are usually manifest which make the grouping 
of the schools into the above types a simple matter. The 
different types will be considered in order and certain 
outstanding examples of each type considered somewhat 
in detail. 

1. The denominational or individual church 
type of week-day church schools. (Chart No. 8 is 
a graphic representation of organization for this type of 
schools.) 

This type of week-day church school is that in which 
the week-day religious instruction is a part of the educa- 
tional program of an individual church. The Church 
usually cooperates with its own denomination in the con- 
duct of the school and in some cases receives aid from 
denominational Boards. Schools of this type are under the 
control of the individual church where they are conducted. 



88 



THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 



The course of study is usually denominational and often 
an adaptation and extension of the Sunday-school les- 
sons. These schools are not denominational in the sense of 
excluding children of other communions from their privi- 
leges ; but in the sense of their organization, course of study, 
and supervision, being in the hands of a church belong- 
ing to a particular denomination. Sometimes two churches 
of the same denomination unite in conducting a week-day 
church school. In such a case, the school would still 
belong to this type. The table on this page gives a list 
of some of the churches which were conducting week-day 
church schools of this type during the school year of 
1919-1920, together with some data concerning the same. 







\m 






















1 4/ r~* 






























Tc 










Name 


of church with which 


Ihe 


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- v 






r^ 








rt 




school is connected 




""""§ £ B 


o>.5 


Z 


■j. 


r 


Q /: 


- 




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<n * , _a "43 


*S +j 


— ~ 


"e 




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SI 


o 5 


2> 

be 
-13 


75 Cj 
Eg 3J 








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Grace Episcopal, Gary, Ind.. . . 

First Baptist, Gary, lad 

Grace Episcopal, Grand Rapids. 
Mich 

St. Mark's Episcopal. Toledo, O. 

First Presbyterian, Flint, Mich. 

North Presbyterian, Rochester, 
N.Y 

Christ Luth., New York, N. Y. 

Church of the Advocate, Episco- 
pal, N.Y _ 

St. Michael's, Episcopal, New 
York, N.Y 



1 

1 


1 







! 90 
400 



15 168 



120 
90 



1-12 

1- 8 

1-12 
1-10! 
4-12 



1-12 
Kg-7 
1-12 



3 Ch. Nur. $1322 6 

3 Keyst. , 1360 6 

I 

3 Ch. Nur.j 1750 1 

2,3,4Ch. Nur. 1304 1 

2,4 Varied JLittle 1 

3 Gary ! 350 1 

2.4 Varied Little 14 



Ch. Nu 



55 4' 2 



I 



Ch. Nur.! 1200 2 



Note — The numbers in the column headed '"Time of Classe 
significance: 1. Before public school. 2. A.fter public school. 3. 
4. Saturday. 



have the following 
During public school. 



Of the schools mentioned in the above list, the First 
Baptist School, of Gary, has been merged with the com- 
munity schools of that city. The school at St. Michael's 
Episcopal Church, New York City, has been abandoned 
temporarily. Week-day church schools of this type are 
coming into existence, at this time, in many parts of the 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 89 

country. Several more have appeared in New York City 
and in Grand Rapids. Among the new communities 
reporting them are Wichita, Kansas; Topeka, Kansas; 
Berkeley, California; Los Angeles, California; Boston, 
Massachusetts; Wampum, Pennsylvania; East Orange, 
New Jersey; Independence, Missouri; Oakland, California; 
Little Reck, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; and Iron 
River, Wisconsin. 

Where a community has only one church, the organiza- 
tion of week-day religious instruction naturally assumes 
the Individual Church Type. Because Protestant denom- 
inations for many years acted quite independently of one 
another in the matter of planting new church enterprises, 
the places where one church has the community all to 
itself are not numerous. Where these conditions exist, the 
individual church has a distinct responsibility and a 
unique opportunity; an opportunity which it can hardly 
utilize and a responsibility it can hardly discharge without 
the organization of week-day church schools. 

It is to be hoped, however, that even in communities 
where one denomination occupies the field by itself, some 
form of cooperation may be established between the week- 
day church school it sets up and the schools of like character 
in other places. Week-day church schools of the individual 
church type are growing in favor, and we must be on our 
guard lest they become new and potent factors in a divided 
and competing Protestantism. Such a turn of events 
would go far toward nullifying the beneficial results we 
are expecting from the religious education revival which 
is now making itself felt. We must seek to conserve, it is 
true, that sense of responsibility which grows up around 
an organization under the individual church; and yet we 
need also that fellowship and enthusiasm which arises from 
a sense of oneness in a widely spread and sublimely 
important enterprise. 



90 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

The week-day church-school movement must not he 
cut loose from the churches and denominations, thus 
creating a new parasitic organization for the community 
to support. On the other hand, it must not break up into 
multiplied and competing fragments which draw sharp 
lines of cleavage through the Protestant community; 
cleavages which have laid upon the Church a heavy penalty 
of waste, inefficiency, and failure. 

Full and friendly cooperation of Protestant denomina- 
tions, at least of evangelical Protestant denominations, is 
one of the greatest needs of our day for the Kingdom 
interest. It is nowhere needed more than in this new and 
important enterprise of week-day religious instruction. 

The week-day religious instruction carried on the past 
year in the First Presbyterian Church of Flint, Michigan, 
will serve as an illustration of the Individual Church Type 
of week-day church school. In the fall of 1919, the pastor 
and the people of this church worked out a plan for sup- 
plementary religious instruction which was successfully 
carried on throughout the year. A course of study was 
outlined in which instruction was to be provided in (1) 
Old Testament, (2) New Testament, (3) Church History, 
(4) Religion and Ethics, and (5) Missions. 

The pastor, the director of religious education, and two 
specially qualified teachers from the Sunday school con- 
stituted the teaching force. The organization of the school 
followed departmental lines, there being a Junior, an Inter- 
mediate, a Senior, and an Adult Department. 

Classes for young people and adults met Wednesday 
at 7.00 and 7.45 p. m. Each class had its own room, but 
all came together for the closing services which took the 
place of the midweek prayer service. Classes for young 
people from the high school met twice a w eek at the church 
immediately after the close of public school. 

These high-school classes made especially good progress, 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 81 

and many young people not connected with the Presby- 
terian Sunday school enrolled in them. High-school credits 
were given by the public-school authorities, for work 
completed in the church-school classes of high-school 
grade. The subject for study during the year was the 
history of the Hebrew people. 

The Junior classes met at the church Saturday mornings. 
They had lessons dealing with the heroes of the Old Testa- 
ment. Some difficulty was found in inducing children to 
give up their customary Saturday activities in order that 
they might take the church-school work. 

The week-day church school which has just been formed 
by the Union Church of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, 
is another good illustration of this type. This school 
opened with the beginning of the school year in the fall 
of 1920. Its membership is at present limited to 120 
pupils. This limit was reached within a very few 
weeks and there is now a considerable waiting list. Its 
sessions are held after the close of the public schools on 
Wednesday. The school begins at 3.30 p. m. and closes at 
5.00 p. m. This time is divided into three periods. The 
first is the general assembly period, given over to worship, 
singing, Bible stories, memorizing of hymns, and like activ- 
ities. The pastor or the director of religious education 
usually takes charge of this period. The second period is 
devoted wholly to Bible study. The Gary leaflets are used, 
though the amount of picture coloring, which is a promi- 
nent feature of these lessons is reduced somewhat and more 
emphasis given to lesson discussion. The pupils divide 
into classes of about twelve members each, and are ar- 
ranged according to grades. The teachers of this period 
are all volunteers from the teaching force of the public 
schools. Most of them are members of the Protestant 
Teachers' Association and have offered their services 
through that organization. The third period is devoted 



92 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

to various activities. Sometimes it is handwork, some- 
times calisthenic drill. Once in every two weeks there 
are moving pictures. The work of this third period is 
under the charge of volunteer workers from the congre- 
gation. Here is a unique arrangement which seems to be 
working well; the devotional service under the pastor or 
his assistant, the instructional period under trained teach- 
ers from the public schools, the handwork under volunteers 
from the congregation who have shown an ability to in- 
struct in the various activities. The division of labor 
makes the task of each individual brief, in time, and 
comparatively easy as to preparation and presentation — 
two ends very much desired in the case of volunteer 
workers. Each set of instructors is required to be present 
only during the time assigned to their particular work. 

Another unique feature has appeared in this school. 
Before a child is enrolled the parents must sign a statement 
that they will cooperate with the church-school leaders in 
securing prompt and regular attendance, and that they 
will assist their children in the preparation of lessons 
assigned for home work. Moreover, they are required to 
make a promise that they will try to create and maintain 
that Christian atmosphere in the home which is so funda- 
mentally necessary in the spiritual nurture of the child. 
This school is teaching the homes of the community as 
well as the children who come to the school from the homes. 
Children of seven Protestant denominations, as well as 
some children from Roman Catholic homes have enrolled 
in this school. Absence three times without excuse auto- 
matically drops the pupil from the roll. A church visitor 
usually looks up the child after the second absence. 

The pastor of this church, Rev. Horace H. Leavitt, says 
that a distinctly higher type of work is being done in the 
w^eek-day church school than in the Sunday school. He 
also states that his Sunday school has made unusually 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 03 

good progress since the organization of the week-day 
school. It has gained in membership notwithstanding the 
fact that many families formerly connected with the 
church and Sunday school have moved away. He attrib- 
utes the Sunday-school growth to the good influence of the 

Chart No. 8 

Organization of a Local Church for 

Week-Day Religious Instruction 




CO] M j M j 



t [ti e Ql 




TEACHERS 



PUPILS 



week-day school which has brought the w^hole church and 
its activities to the attention of a considerable number of 
families heretofore unacquainted with the church in any 
way. The cost has been very slight; less than fifty dollars 
for the three months the school has been running. 

It will be seen from the above examples that this type 



94 



THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 



of week-day church school is simple in organization and 
inexpensive to operate. A high grade of educational work 
is, nevertheless, possible through its instrumentality. Such 
a school is easily within reach of the average congregation. 
There seems no valid excuse for not organizing them, by 
hundreds, without delay. 

The plans pursued in these two churches may, or may 
not, fit conditions in other churches. The whole matter of 
week-day church-school problems is to be discussed in a 
subsequent chapter of this book. 

2. The denominational community type of week- 
day church schools. (Chart No. 9 is a graphic rep- 
resentation of the organization for this type of school.) 

There are communities where practically all the churches 
are carrying on week-day religious instruction in schools 
under their own control and supervision and using, in each 
case, denominational lesson materials. When the various 
churches in such a community act together in such matters 
as the securing of time concessions from the public schools, 
campaigns for the ingathering of pupils, and other similar 
undertakings; thus indicating that the spirit of competi- 



<4-t 
C 


Years in 
Operation 

Pupils 


Teachers 
Part-time 
Teachers 
Full-time 
Churches 
Cooperating 


Grades 
Taught 

Time of 
Classes 


Budget 


Batavia, Illinois 

Cuyahoga Falls, 
Ohio 


2 715 25 

6 550 13 
2 500, 70 

1 480 20 











11 

5 

9 

7 


i 
1-8 Thursday 

1-8 'Wed. P. M. 
1-8 Wed. P. M. 

3-8 ;Wed. A. M. 

i 


Little 
Little 


Northfield, Minn. . . . 
Somerville, N. J 


$2000 

Estimate 

Little 



tion is absent, and the idea of religious education by com- 
munity action dominant, the system may be called the 
Denominational Community Type. It will be seen that 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 95 



this type is really the denominational type extended to all 
the churches of a community with a definite program of 
cooperation for the purpose of reaching all the children of 
the community with efficient religious instruction. There 
are four outstanding examples of this type of week-day 
church schools in this country. They are named and 
certain statistics concerning them are given on the preced- 
ing page. 

The week-day church schools of Cuyahoga Falls are 
among the oldest in the country, having started only 
one year after the beginning of the Gary church schools. 
The experiment seems to have proved successful there. 
Nearly every church is carrying on a school and the 
public-school authorities are enthusiastic in their support 
of the movement. 

Chart No. 9 

DENIZATION OF TOE DENOMINATIONAL COMMUNITY TtFE 

of Week-Day Church Schools 





ADVISORY BOAR 












c n 


U R C 


H E 


V 


i i 


EDUCATIONAL 


AGENC 


IES 


II 1 


T E 


A |C H 


E R 


S_ 


1 


P 


U P 1 


L S 





In the fall of 1919 the eleven churches of Batavia, with 
the advice and help of the superintendent of schools, 
inaugurated a system of week-day religious instruction 
which has attained some interesting results and has 



96 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

attracted wide attention. Under the Batavia plan, the 
children are excused from public school in three successive 
groups on Thursday, in order that they may receive 
religious instruction in the church of their choice. Grades 
one, two, and three go directly to the church schools on 
Thursday morning at nine o'clock. 

Their class period lasts until 10.15 a. m., when they are 
dismissed and must he at the public school by 10.30. 
Grades four, five, and six are dismissed from public school 
at 10.45 in the morning, must be at the church school by 
11.00, and are released at noon to go to their homes for 
lunch. Grades seven and eight go to the church schools 
from their homes in the afternoon at 1.15. At 2.15 these 
two grades are dismissed from the church schools and are 
required to be at public school by 2.30. * 

The following denominations are cooperating in the plan : 
Brethren, Roman Catholic, Congregational, Episcopal, 
Methodist, German Lutheran, Swedish Lutheran, Swedish 
Methodist, Swedish Mission, German Evangelical, and 
Baptist. The Methodist Episcopal Church and the 
Swedish Methodist Church hold their classes together, so 
the number of centers is ten. No credit is given by the 
public schools of Batavia for work done in the church 
schools, but the pupil's church-school grade is recorded on 
his public-school card in a space provided for it and marked 
"Religious Instruction." 

Most of the Batavia church schools meet in church 
parlors or other rooms fitted up for them in church build- 
ings. The rector of the Episcopal church has fitted up a 
schoolroom in his own home and the church-school classes 
of his denomination are held there. 

About twenty people have taken part in the work of 
instruction in the church schools of Batavia. The pastor 

1 The plan described here has been modified somewhat the present 
year (1921). 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 97 

is, in most cases, the head of the school and does a good 
deal of teaching. All the teachers serve without compensa- 
tion. 

The course of study in nearly all the schools is an 
amplification of the regular Sunday-school material. There 
seems to be little difficulty experienced in so expanding the 
regular Sunday-school curriculum as to secure teaching 
material for both the Sunday and week-day classes. There 
is, of course, under the present system, no uniformity in the 
Batavia schools, as a whole. There are as many courses of 
study in the church schools as there are church-school 
centers. 

The attendance is excellent. During a period of thirty 
weeks there have not been any cases of truancy. The 
enrollment in the church schools has very nearly equaled 
the enrollment in the corresponding grades of the public 
schools, an ideal which Batavia has more nearly attained 
than any other community. Of the 725 pupils in the 
elementary grades only fifty-nine, about eight per cent of 
the whole, were not enrolled in the church schools. This 
splendid achievement is due to a little group of church 
workers who obtained a list of all the children in town,and 
worked on it persistently. 

Under the Batavia plan expenses are very light. A 
small amount of money was collected to pay for the 
printing of some cards, the only expense incurred by the 
system as a whole. Some additional expense was incurred 
in each school, but this was not large, owing to the 
general use of Sunday-school material in the week-day 
classes. 

Exhortations to economy are not generally needed in 
religious educational matters; nevertheless, the Batavia 
churches have shown that the matter of expense need not 
be a hindrance to any community in putting on week-day 
church-school work. There is no community so poor that 



98 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

it may not have these schools if it really washes to have 
them. 

The Northfield schools have been under the guidance 
of Carleton College and have made good progress. The 
pupils are dismissed at 2:45 p.m., Wednesday afternoon. 
Most of the schools use their own Sunday-school course 
of study; but the Methodist school and the Moravian 
school use the Gary leaflets. One of the schools paid its 
teachers; the others secured volunteers for their work of 
instruction. 

The Somerville schools were organized in the autumn 
of 1920, and have made splendid progress. They are 
under the advisory control of the County Sunday School 
Association. Schools are being conducted by the Epis- 
copal Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, 
the Catholic Church, three Reformed Churches, and the 
Jewish synagogue. All the teaching is done by volunteer 
teachers with the exception of that given in the Jewish 
synagogue. 

Cory don, Iowa, has just organized a successful system of 
church schools of the Denominational Community Type. 

This type of week-day church school is strong in secur- 
ing the support and interest of the individual churches 
since it puts the responsibility on them and makes the 
.-success of their own school rest with the members of each 
church. It promises to w^ork especially well in cities of 
from 5000 to 15,000 people, or in sections of like size, in 
larger cities, where there is a local community conscious- 
ness. Its weakness lies in the fact that it is exceedingly 
hard under the plan to lift all the schools to a high standard 
of excellence. Some schools will do splendid work. These 
will exist usually in churches where the pastor is deeply 
interested in religious education and efficient in educa- 
tional leadership. Other churches will have schools of 
just fair efficiency. Some schools are apt to be poor. 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 



Now the time is past when the efficient religious educa- 
tional school of a community can afford to be indifferent 
to the failures of its sister educational agencies. The 
religious educational problem of a community is one 
problem; and if one agency fails, to that extent, all fail. 
This type of week-day schools will be greatly improved if 
some form of efficient, advisory supervision can be devised 
acceptable to all the cooperating denominations. It is 



Organization of the 
of Week- 



Chart No. 10 

INTERDENOMINATIONAL CftftftttfNITr TyPE 

Iat Church Schools 

~r\ c~ 



H 




doubtful whether the church schools of any community 
can ever do the work as it ought to be done without com- 
munity supervision. This does not mean community 
control; the supervision proposed would be advisory 
rather than mandatory. 

3. The interdenominational community type of 
week-day church schools. (Chart No. 10 is a graphic 
representation of the organization for this type of school.) 

In this type of week-day church schools the organization, 



100 



THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 



control, and maintenance of the week-day religious in- 
struction is delegated by the cooperating denominations 
to a community board, council, or committee of religious 
education. The course of study is the same for all the 
schools under the controlling body. Religious matters 
on which the cooperating denominations differ are left out 
of the instruction given in such schools. The following 
table gives a list of the cities where this type of week-day 
church schools has been organized. The statistics given 
are for the school year of 1919-1920. 



>> 


2 . 
Years in 
Operation 




« 2 
S3 S 

CJ 3 


^-5 2 


CO <u 

c 


"a 






10 

Course of 

Study 


PQ 




5 

7 
5 

3 

2 

2 
2 


l£ 1 60 ! 22 


1500 1-12 

3150' 1-12 

2620 3-6 & 

!H. S. 

8501 1-6 

900| 1-6 

234 1-6 


2 
3 
3 

3 
1 

2 




$4 .71 6. 4.1 


Gary, Indiana 

Toledo, Ohio 

Van Wert, Ohio. 

Evanston, Illinois. . . 

Indiana Harbor, 
Indiana 


2 
1 

1 
2* 

2 

1 


8 ; 2 

| 54 

1 ; 1 
1 ! 32 

1 3 


8 
26 

4 
12 

2 

1 


Gary ,11,759.16 
Toledo) 5,000.00 
Course 

GaryL. 1,707.91 
Evans- i 3,375.00 

ton 
Evans-! 1,680.00 

ton 


Hobart, Indiana .... 


1 





120 


1-8 


3 


Gary 


551.50 



In column 9, 1 means before public school, 2 means after public school, 3 means 
during public school, 4 means on Saturdays. 

Of the schools listed in the table just given, those at 
Evanston and at Indiana Harbor are under the advisory 
superintendence of the Department of Religious Educa- 
tion of Northwestern University. The work in these two 
communities is now entering upon its second year. The 
Evanston schools have shown a marked growth over that 
of last year. The work began last year in Indiana Harbor 
has been extended to other communities of the Calumet 
Region; namely, to Hammond, East Chicago, and Whit- 
ing. Northwestern University is also assisting the move- 
ment in Oak Park, Illinois, where week-day religious 
instruction has been started on an encouraging basis. 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 101 

Week-day church schools, of the type we are now consider- 
ing, have been organized the present year in Austin, 
Illinois; Wilniette, Illinois; Oak Park, Illinois; Man- 
chester, New Hampshire; and Kansas City, Missouri. 
All these new schools have some interesting features, some 
of which will be mentioned later. 

The Interdenominational TVeek-Day Church Schools of 
New York City are under the supervision of the Protestant 
Teachers' Association. This organization is not a Teach- 
ers' Association of the usual type whose chief aim is the 
attainment of professional efficiency. This one was 
formed with quite another primary end in view; namely, 
the bringing of religious instruction to the spiritually 
neglected children of our great metropolis. That these 
New York public-school teachers should see the religious 
educational needs of childhood, and freely offer themselves 
for service, during the small amount of time left them for 
recreation and study after their daily tasks are done, 
is an event of profound significance. It goes far toward 
proving the truth of Dr. Cope's assertion that American 
school-teachers are the greatest body of idealists in the 
world. Their altruism is a rebuke to our commercialized 
and selfish civilization. 

This Association now numbers over 4000 members. 
All these members contribute toward the support of the 
work and a large number take part in the work of 
teaching. The Association is now in active and definite 
cooperation with the New York City Sunday School 
x\ssociation, the Brooklyn Sunday School Union, and the 
Daily Vacation Bible School Association. Under the 
leadership of these three organizations, the united Protes- 
tant churches are seeking to do their part in reaching 
with religious nurture the hundreds of thousands of spirit- 
ually neglected children of the city. 

It may be mentioned here, that the Catholic teachers 



102 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

have a similar association which is giving religious instruc- 
tion to some 4000 children, in twenty -five different centers. 
Besides these twenty -five centers where religious instruc- 
tion is given throughout the school year, the Catholic 
Teachers' Association conducts each summer an extensive 
system of vacation schools. Over 24,000 children were en- 
rolled in this latter kind of school during the past summer. 
The Jews of New York City, however, have gone far 
beyond both Protestants and Catholics in the organization 
of week-day church schools in New York City. They 
recognized, some fifteen years or more ago, that the 
Sunday schools were inadequate to the task of transmit- 
ting their racial and religious heritage from generation to 
generation, under American conditions. At the same 
time they came to see that the parochial school was not 
fitted for extensive use in a democracy. Hence they 
turned to the development of supplementary religious 
instruction on week days. They were giving instruction 
to over 65,000 children in New York, in 1920. They have 
built an efficient educational institution for the training 
of their teachers, have created a strong organization for 
the study of their educational problems and for the general 
oversight of Jewish education, and have undertaken exten- 
sion work through which they are reaching many of the 
Jewish children and youths who are not able to attend the 
week-day schools. Protestant denominations have much 
to learn from the extensive and persistent efforts of the 
Hebrew people to reach and hold for the faith of their fore- 
fathers, the children of our great cities. They realize 
that without an efficient educational system they cannot 
reasonably hope for the survival of their faith. When we 
think of the army of nominally Protestant people, who are 
yet unchurched, we may well ask ourselves whether 
religious education is not as important for us as it is for 
the Jews. 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 103 

The week-day church schools of Gary, Indiana, were in 
January, 1921, engaged in their seventh year of work. 
The interdenominational plan, begun four years ago, has 
gradually grown until it has absorbed all of the denomina- 
tional schools with the exception of the Episcopal. Eight 
denominations are at present cooperating in the conduct 
of the community schools. 

Toledo is now in the fifth year of its week-day church- 
school experiment. During the school year, of 1919-1920, 
the community schools of Toledo enrolled 2620 pupils, a 
gain of two hundred and sixty-nine per cent over that of 
the preceding year. This remarkable increase was due 
to the securing of more adequate financial support for the 
schools, and to the reorganization of the instruction under 
trained educational leadership. It is generally agreed, in 
Toledo, that the enrollment could have been made twice 
as great had the means for receiving the pupils been 
adequate. 

The Van Wert schools are making steady growth, the 
present enrollment being ten per cent greater than last 
year. Eighty-six per cent of the public-school pupils, for 
whom religious instruction is provided, have chosen it 
voluntarily. Over a hundred junior high-school pupils 
asked that the religious instruction which they had last 
year be continued, but the request had to be denied on 
account of insufficient funds. That the childhood of our 
great rich country should ask for religious instruction, 
and ask in vain, because there is no money to meet the 
trifling expense, is a sin and a shame. 

Reference to the week-day church schools of these 
various communities will be made in the following 
chapters where we are to take up the different problems 
connected with the organization and maintenance of 
week-day religious instruction. In closing this chapter 
some of the strong points of the Interdenominational 



104 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

Community Type of week-day church schools will be 
considered. 

1. This type is economical. It enables the Protes- 
tant forces cooperating to plant one church school besides 
every public school, instead of having several church 
schools near each public school. The chart on this page 
shows the large financial saving made in Gary due to the 
bringing of the w^eek-day church schools under interdenom- 
inational supervision. 

Chart No. 11 

YEARLY COST PER PUPIL FOR INSTRUCTION 
WEEK-DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 



Denominational >«2.isi 
inter0en0n. *3.2si 



INTERDENOMINATIONAL COOPERATION 
MAKES WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
FINANCIALLY POSSIBLE 

2. This type of school is efficient. It brings the 
week-day instruction under one management and super- 
vision, so that all receive trained superintendence. The 
course of study is the same for all. The elimination of 
denominational instruction from the week-day church- 
school curriculum gives them an opportunity to emphasize 
the Christian fundamentals, leaving denominational mat- 
ters to the Sunday-school instruction. This division of 
labor, if rightly carried out, is in the interest of efficiency. 



THREE TYPES OF ^YEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 105 



3. This type of school tends to elevate religious 
education to the dignity of a life calling. When 

Protestant denominations cooperate in their week-day 
church-school enterprises, the task of the week-day 
church-school teacher becomes large enough to demand 
all her time. This is not usually the case where the week- 
day schools are denominational. The matter is one of 

Chart No. 12 

Growth of the Week-Day Church School Movement 

Communities i* Teh Years 

60 



50 

¥0 
2>0 



zc 



/o 





































v6i 
















/j 


1 
















S^ 




/ 


< 


/ 


2 . 


3 


r i 







4UZ Tffif MP M* M6 l9J? 7m W9 /9ZO /?M 

Years 

importance. The religious instruction of children is a 
task second to none in importance. It merits a whole- 
souled, whole-life service; and such a devotion to it has 
never been possible in any large way. That one may give 
the highest and fullest devotion to any task it must be his 
vocation and not merely his avocation. There has been 
no opportunity for any considerable number of people to 
make the religious instruction of children a life work. 



106 



THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 



Chart No. 13 
Communities Where Week-Day Religious Instruction 
Has Beeh Organized 




Chart No. 

Communities Where Week Day Religious Instruction 
Has Been Organized 




(The difference in the number of dots on these two maps represents the 
increase in the number of communities carrying on week-day religious 
instruction for the first four months of the school year, 1920-1921.) 



THREE TYPES OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 107 

This task which an archangel might desire has been per- 
force a side issue even with those who would gladly give 
to it their best and their all. If the interdenominational 
week-day church schools are instrumental in bringing back 
to the Church its long-lost teaching ministry, they will 
perform a service of inestimable value. 

4. This type of school is democratic. It helps to 
give that sense of community solidarity and of community 
responsibility which are essential to all movements for 
community betterment. 

The weak spot in this type of week-day church-school 
organization lies in the fact that the individual churches 
are apt to be lacking in a sense of responsibility for the 
enterprise. There are too many organizations now which 
are supported by church people and yet are quite inde- 
pendent of any interchurch control. Such organizations 
are essentially parasitic. The w^eek-day church-school 
movement must do something more than contribute 
another of these organizations to our already large number. 
Each cooperating church must in some way be brought to 
consider that the week-day church-school enterprise, even 
though it be on an interdenominational basis, is its own 
undertaking. Each church must assume responsibility 
for the support of the schools and must cooperate in every 
way for their successful operation. If this kind of con- 
sciousness of responsibility and this kind of cooperation 
cannot be secured, the undertaking of week-day instruc- 
tion on an interdenominational basis is an experiment of 
doubtful advisability. 

The week-day church-school movement has made rapid 
progress during the first five months of the present school 
year, the number of communities carrying on the work 
having increased during that time by more than two 
hundred per cent. The organization of week-day church 
schools has been reported during the past few weeks from 



108 



THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 



the cities listed below. In most cases classes are already 
meeting, but in a few cases the organization has not yet 
reached that stage, as these lines are being written. 

Communities Organizing Week-Day Church Schools 

During the First Five Months of the Present 

School Year 



1. Somerville, N. J. 

2. Fort Collins, Colo. 

3. Mankato, Minn. 

4. Wampum, Pa. 

5. Philadelphia, Pa. 

6. Chicago, 111. 

7. Oak Park, 111. 

8. x\berdeen, S. Dak. 

9. Cory don, Iowa. 

10. Waukesha, Wis. 

11. Hoboken,N. J. 

12. East Orange, N. J. 

13. South Orange, N. J. 

14. Schenectady, N. Y. 

15. Buffalo, N. Y. 

16. Kansas City, Mo. 

17. Topeka, Kan. 

18. Wichita, Kan. 

19. Los Angeles, Cal. 

20. Berkeley, Cal. 

21. Manchester, N. H. 



22. Boston, Mass. 

23. Hammond, Ind. 

24. Whiting, Ind. 

25. East Chicago, Ind. 

26. Wilmette, 111. 

27. Austin, 111. 

28. Jersey City, N. J. 

29. Geneva, N. Y. 

30. Canisteo, N. Y. 

31. 01ean,N. Y. 

32. Kingston, N. Y. 

33. Aurora, N. Y. 

34. Independence, Mo. 

35. Iron River, Wis. 

36. Memphis, Tenn. 

37. Little Rock, Ark. 

38. Oshkosh, Wis. 

39. Niagara Falls, N. ^i 

40. Oakland, Cal. 

41. Albert Lea, Minn. 

42. Red Wing, Minn. 



CHAPTER V 



Some Contributions of the Week Day 
Church School Movement Toward 
the Solution of Religious Educa- 
tional Problems 



CHAPTER V 

Some Contributions of the Week Day Church School 

Movement Toward the Solution of Religious 

Educational Problems 

When one reads the Sunday-school literature, published 
twenty-five or thirty years ago, he is impressed with the 
fact that the problems of religious education now are the 
same as those with which other generations have wrestled. 
In some cases, a good deal has been done toward the solu- 
tion of religious educational problems ; but in other cases, 
hardly anything has been accomplished. It is doubtless 
true that the efforts for the betterment of religious educa- 
tion have not always been what they should have been, 
and yet in some cases, the results attained are not com- 
mensurate with the effort expended. Faithful and earnest 
efforts, so to improve the educational agencies of the 
Church as to make them efficient in instruction and suc- 
cessful in reaching all the children and youth of the land, 
have not been wanting in any decade for a hundred years, 
and of late such efforts have redoubled. When efforts of 
the kind named are continued for years and continue to 
bear but meager fruitage, it is time to make inquiry 
as to whether the hindering cause may not exist, as 
inherent deficiencies in the agencies with which educa- 
tional leaders work, rather than in the workers themselves. 
A conviction that the facts suggested in the statement 
just made are true, regarding the primary educational 
agencies of the Church, is gaining ground in Protestant 
circles. This conviction is the primary incentive for the 
organization of supplementary religious educational agen- 
cies. They have grown out of the feeling that the custo- 

111 



112 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

mary educational agencies of the Church, however much 
they may be improved, will still remain inadequate to the 
whole of the educational task of the Christian religion. 
Before a new educational agency is given a large place in 
the program of the Church, it should be able to demon- 
strate its ability to solve some of the educational problems, 
or at least to make an important contribution toward that 
end. It is the object of the present chapter to show that 
such claims can be justly made for the week-day church- 
school movement. 

1. The week-day church school gives promise of 
solving the many problems growing out of the here- 
tofore inadequate time provided for religious in- 
struction. The time provided for religious instruction 
has been so meager that efficient teaching has been next 
to impossible. But the teacher has not been the only one 
for whom the lack of sufficient time for religious instruc- 
tion has made problems. The denominational Sunday- 
school lesson writers have been compelled to confine their 
materials within the same narrow time limits. That 
richness of illustration so helpful to efficient teaching has 
been sacrificed. Much valuable Biblical material has been 
omitted entirely or treated in a more or less superficial 
way because there was no use of putting more into the 
lessons than the teachers had time to teach. The rich 
heritage of extra-Biblical material so abundant in the 
poetry, hymns, and art of the world has remained prac- 
tically untouched. Handwork, dramatization of Bible 
stories, and all other expressional activities have been 
practically impossible in Sunday-school classes because of 
inadequate time allowance. All these things have reacted 
against the Sunday school, causing many children to set 
its value at a very low figure in comparison with the public 
school. Not a few teachers have abandoned Sunday- 
school activity because they felt that the time allowed 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 113 

for teaching was so brief as to make any genuine instruc- 
tion impossible. Some excellent teachers are so con- 
stituted that if they cannot do good work they prefer not 
to do any. 

This inadequacy of our religious educational agencies 
has been treated at some length in a preceding chapter, so 
it is necessary now only to show how^ the week-day church 
school overcomes it. The week-day church school adds 
from an hour to two and one-half hours a week to the time 

Chart No. 15 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION PROVIDED 

HOURS PER TEAR 
PrOTESTAMT 2 5SE3 

Catholic 2oaHBBnanG«HSBms 

Jewish it ihiiumiiiiiiiiiihi iwibii i h — i 

Available in Gary 2O7Bbbbbbbbbb&bhb0I 



THE WEEK-DAT CHURCH SCHOOL 
GIVES THE PROTESTANT CHILD A CHANCE 



set aside for religious instruction. If this increased time 
is found to be still insufficient, the w T eek-day church-school 
plan can be so extended as to secure additional time. If 
a community avails itself of such agencies as the week-day 
church school and the vacation-church school, instead of 
having a meager twenty-five hours, or at most, fifty hours, 
it wall have over two hundred hours a year for religious 
instruction. This will give time for efficient teaching, for 
recitations close enough together to have pedagogical 
value for curriculum material, abundant enough to be 



114 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

interesting and helpful, and for expressional activities that 
will make the religious truths taught an integral part of 
the child's everyday life. It will put Protestant relig- 
ious education on a par with that of Jews and Roman 
Catholics. It will give the Protestant child a chance to 
become religious. 

2. The week-day church school is helping to secure 
regularity of attendance at religious instruction 
classes. Every public-school teacher knows how impor- 
tant regularity of attendance is in the secular education 
of a child. If a child misses one day a week at public 
school, he gets hardly more than half of the instructional 
value of the recitations; if he misses two days a week, 
he had almost as well not attend at all. The Sunday- 
school teachers too, are not unaware of the great impor- 
tance of regular attendance, and they have been making 
faithful efforts to attain it from time immemorial. The 
fact that the average Sunday-school pupil attends only 
about half the time, would seem to indicate that Sunday- 
school teachers have not been largely successful in their 
efforts to secure regularity of attendance on the part of 
their pupils. 

Regularity of attendance is much more easily secured in 
the week-day church school than in the Sunday school. 
Circumstances are in favor of regularity of attendance in 
the former, against it in the latter. Going to school is 
the week-day business of children. The regularity of 
attendance characteristic of the public school naturally 
goes over to the week-day church school in cooperation 
with it. On week days parents are usually engaged in 
their customary occupations, so that their desires for 
recreation do not tempt them to betake themselves and 
their children away from the place where religious instruc- 
tion is being given. The Sunday school must compete 
with the Sunday automobile, the Sunday excursion, and 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 115 



in some communities with the Sunday " movie." The 
week-day church school has far less potent rivals of the 
kind named. More ample time for classroom work, 
better seats, and better equipment, all have a part in mak- 
ing the attendance at the week-day church school regular. 
The accompanying chart, No. 16, shows the higher per- 
centage of attendance attained in the week-day church 

Chart No. 16 

PERCENTAGE^ ATTENDANCE 



Beginners 

Primary 

Junior 

Interm. 

Senior 




GARY INDIANA 

schools of Gary than in the Sunday schools of the same 
city. The percentages are figured on the customary 
public-school method of computing attendance statistics. 
That is, if every child enrolled is present every day the 
schools are in session, the percentage of attendance is one 
hundred per cent. In other words, no deductions are made 
for late enrollments and withdrawals. Sunday schools do 
not usually compute their attendance statistics in this 



116 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

maimer, but statistics so computed have a value beyond 
those computed in other ways, and it has therefore been 
the method used in this case. 

3. The week-day church schools are calling to- 
gether and developing a body of trained teachers of 
religion and skilled supervisors of religious instruc- 
tion. The need for such religious educators has been 
mentioned in a preceding chapter. In a dozen different 
American communities, teachers of religion to children 
and youth are giving a part of their time to the work of 
week-day church schools and receiving suitable compensa- 
tion for their services. In half as many more, these 
teachers of religion are giving full time to the work of 
the week-day church schools. The teaching of religion 
to children is their vocation, their calling. The Church 
has had no catechists since the early centuries of its 
existence. The week-day church school is bringing them 
back. 

The development of week-day religious instruction 
throughout the nation will have a profound effect on edu- 
cation, in general. Already progressive colleges, uni- 
versities, and theological seminaries are getting ready to 
meet the demand which they foresee for teachers of religion. 
One does not need a prophet's vision to see that we are 
entering an era when the teaching of the great truths of 
our religion will be undertaken more seriously and more 
extensively than ever before. 

4. The week-day church school will aid the efforts 
being made to correlate the educational agencies of 
the Church. As has been pointed out on a preceding 
page, the week-day church school possesses certain inher- 
ent possibilities, which fit it to become the central and 
unifying organization for a correlated system of religious 
educational agencies. The emergence of this new educa- 
tional agency of the Church has called for the organization 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 117 

of councils of religious education in the individual church 
and in the community. The Sunday school had long 
held the field without any rival worthy of the name. 
There has been no rivalry between the Sunday school and 
the week-day church school, but the fact that another 
educational agency, which gives promise of large growth 
has appeared within the Church has compelled church 
leaders to think of a readjustment and redistribution of 
the educational task of the Church. It is becoming evi- 
dent that the logical conception for the individual church 
is that which thinks of its educational task as one, which 
puts the task under one management, and delegates 
specific portions of the task to particular agencies. The 
individual church needs a church school, with a Sunday 
session, a number of week-day sessions, a vacation session; 
with classes suited to the religious needs of all from the 
cradle to extreme old age. This does not mean, of course, 
that the individual church may not unite with other 
churches in the conducting of some phases of its church- 
school work. 

5. The week-day church school is helping to build 
up an adequate and comprehensive course of study 
for religious instruction* These schools have not only 
made such a course possible by securing more time for reli- 
gious instruction, as has been noted, but they are making 
contributions toward such a course. They have given to 
religious educational experimentation a larger and more 
favorable opportunity than it ever enjoyed before. They 
have given handwork and dramatization a place in the 
religious educational curriculum. They have led de- 
nominations to increase the amount of lesson material, 
prepared for religious teaching, by nearly one hundred 
per cent. They are helping to hasten the day when there 
shall be a course of religious instruction which contains 
abundant Biblical material, and which also gathers into 



118 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

Itself the religious values so abundant in the natural 
world, in great hymns, in great paintings, and in the great 
lives of secular history. 

6. The week-day church school is helping to secure 
proper housing and equipment for religious educa- 
tional agencies. The trained teachers and supervisors 
who are coming into the week-day church schools are 
insisting on right teaching conditions and suitable equip- 
ment. Sunday-school classes often hold their recitation 
periods with a dozen classes crowded together in a com- 
paratively small room, where the teacher can hardly be 
heard without shouting at the top of her voice. Such 
conditions are intolerable to a trained teacher. In matters 
of housing and equipment the week-day church schools 
have broken away from the Sunday-school customs and 
are following the models set up by the public schools. 
Each class has a room to itself, usually well equipped with 
such teaching materials as blackboards, maps, charts, and 
educational pictures. Neither the church auditorium nor 
the arrangement of Sunday-school rooms called the Akron 
plan is a suitable meeting place for a real school, and the 
week-day church-school leaders have broken away from 
both wherever they have had the opportunity. They 
have usually found some small room in a church building 
and have fitted it up with desks and other school furniture. 
In Gary, one building has been erected for week-day 
church-school use and is used exclusively for week-day 
religious instruction. It is the first of its kind in America. 
Though an inexpensive building, it is neatly furnished and 
well-suited for educational purposes. 

This tendency to insist on real school buildings and real 
school equipment for the church-school agencies is begin- 
ning to be felt throughout the Church at large. The newer 
types of church buildings show a distinct tendency toward 
the creation of church-school housing facilities after the 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 11!) 

public-school model and comparable with public-school 
standards. 

7. The week-day church schools are helping to 
emphasize the importance of expressional activity 
in religious education and to secure such activities 
an adequate place in the religious educational pro- 
gram. They are doing this not only by securing more 
adequate time for religious instruction, as has been 
mentioned, but by making notable contributions to the 
subject matter and teaching methods of such expressional 
activities as handwork, notebook making, dramatization 
of Bible stories, and social service projects. In some of 
the week-day church-school courses, an effort is made to 
secure the expression of all religious truths taught in the 
classroom, by appropriate conduct in the school, in the 
home, and on the playground. 

8. The week-day church schools are making a con- 
tribution to general pedagogical science. Reference 
has repeatedly been made in these pages to the fact that 
the week-day church schools are following public-school 
models. It is not meant to be understood that the week- 
day church schools are slavishly imitating the public 
schools, nor is it implied that the week-day church schools 
are mere recipients of benefits giving nothing in return. 
Public-school education will ultimately receive from 
religious education just as great benefits as any it has 
given. Religious educators are helping public-school 
educators to see the wholeness of the educational task as 
they had not seen it before. Some farseeing public-school 
educators have realized, for some time, that there could 
be no complete and satisfactory educational scheme 
which did not provide for the culture of the religious 
faculties, but the number of them who have realized this 
truth has been small. The growth of week-day religious 
instruction with its accompanying development of a more 



120 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

extensive literature of religious pedagogy, will help many 
public-school educators to see a new educational light. 
It is not unreasonable to hope that the growth of religious 
education will do a great service to educational science 
in spiritualizing the educative process. There can be no 
education, worthy of the name, where there is not con- 
fidence, sympathy, and deep affection between the teacher 

Chart No. 17 

Enrollments in Gary 
Public Schools oiso 



Week-Day Church Schools asoo 
Sunday Schools - ages 6 ro n - 2600 

The Week-Day Church Schools of Gary Reach a 
Thousand More Children than 
the Suhoay Schools 

and the pupil. This truth is recognized somewhat in 
public-school education, but more generally in religious 
education, though it is as true in the one as in the other. 
The religious teacher will come to her task as one called of 
God, and her coming will help to raise the whole teaching 
profession to a like consciousness with its consequent 
devotion. 
9. The week-day church schools are an important 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 121 

instrumentality for reaching the millions of Ameri- 
can children who are spiritually untaught. How to 

reach and hold the twenty-seven millions of American 
children growing up in spiritual illiteracy, is a problem of 
tremendous seriousness. Any agency that gives evidence 
that it is of use in solving the problem deserves earnest con- 
sideration. We have laid upon the Sunday school a bur- 
den it will never be able to bear. During the years from 

Chart No. 18 

PERCENTAGE of PUBLIC SCHOOL FOFSLS 
J » WEEK-DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 

Gar* Grades M2 44 Pe^Cent 



Van Wert Grades 1-6 §7 Fee* Cent 
Bata¥ia Grades 1-8 87 Per Cent 



Batavii Is Hearing tks Goal 

1916 to 1920, Sunday-school attendance declined by many 
millions, at a time when the population of the country was 
steadily increasing. The overburdened Sunday school 
could not bear the added strain of war conditions. In re- 
cent months the adverse tide has been turned in some 
localities, but not in all. It is quite evident that the Sun- 
day school cannot continue to bear the educational task of 
the Church practically unaided. There must be supple- 



122 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

mental religious educational agencies. Our ideal and goal 
should be the reaching and holding of every child which 
the Protestant churches can rightly claim. Somewhat less 
than forty per cent of them are being reached and of the 
number reached only about forty per cent are being 
brought into the Church. Forty per cent of forty per cent is 
sixteen per cent. Our religious educational agencies are 
only about sixteen per cent efficient. For every child 
reached and held for the Church, five are lost. Every 

Chart No. 19 

PERCENTAGE of pypiLS RECEIVING 

10 OTHER RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 



%M UlRiCR m 




Toledo m 

Gary 

Hour? 

Vah Wert 



Week-Day Church Schools 

community where week-day church schools have been 
organized can show a record, in this matter, better than 
the average. A comparison of the enrollment in religious 
educational institutions with the enrollment in the public 
schools is a good index as to how well the churches of a 
community are discharging their educational task. 

A typical city of 25,000 people shows an enrollment in 
institutions for religious instruction equal to forty per cent 
of the public-school enrollment. 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 123 

Gary, Indiana, a city of 55,000 people, shows an enroll- 
ment in Sunday schools and week-day church schools equal 
to fifty-eight per cent of the public-school enrollment, in 
corresponding grades. 

Van Wert, Ohio, a city of 9000 people, shows an enroll- 
ment in w^eek-day church schools equal to eighty-seven per 
cent of the public-school enrollment, in corresponding 
grades. 

Batavia, Illinois, a city of 5000 people, has ten w r eek-day 
church schools and the enrollment in them is ninety-seven 
per cent of the enrollment in the eight corresponding public- 
school grades. Only fifteen children in the city are not en- 
rolled in the church-school classes. Batavia is nearing 
the goal. When any community has as many children in 
institutions for religious instruction as it has in the public 
schools that community is to be congratulated; it is not 
far from the Kingdom. 

Even stronger evidence, than that just given, of the 
ability of the week-day church school to reach the spiritu- 
ally untaught children of the land is shown by the following 
facts : 

In Van Wert, eleven per cent of the children enrolled in 
the week-day church schools were not receiving any 
religious instruction at the time they joined the church- 
school classes. 

In Gary, thirty-five per cent of the children enrolled in 
the week-day church schools were not receiving any reli- 
gious instruction at the time they joined the church-school 
classes. 

In Toledo, forty per cent of the children enrolled in the 
week-day church schools were not receiving any religious 
instruction at the time they joined the church-school 
classes. 

In Indiana Harbor, forty-five per cent of the children 
enrolled in the week-day church-school classes were not 



124 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

receiving any religious instruction at the time they joined 
the church-school classes. See Chart No. 19. 

The week-day church school is especially successful in 
reaching the children of foreign-speaking homes. Statis- 
tics as to the nationality of some 1600 of the week-day 
church-school pupils of Gary were examined. Thirty 
nationalities were represented in this number, as indicated 
in the following graphic chart. 

Chart No. 20 
Pupils of FoiEig&lo^ and Colored Parentage 
Sary Week-Dm Church Schools 




TbcaVvcvvw J/3 

Sc>\.a»\>VbU. if si. 

l^clVsU /of 

Usbuiw '/ SB 

Vv&vtcXt -%■ 

\?>«.Va\c«^ -21 

C-£«wWvW3k •&■ 

?sVowa.U /« 

V\ uXWuictvw y I 

^ttAavk /I 

. This chart shows something of the possibilities of the 
week-day church school as an agency for Christian Ameri- 
canization. 

Many of these foreign-born parents are accustomed t@ 
some form of week-day religious instruction in the country 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 125 

of their birth, and consequently take to it quite readily in 
America. 

The week-day church school gathers into its membership 
children of many different denominations. In every com- 
munity there are apt to be a good many people holding to 
some demonination which is not strong enough in the 

Chart No. 21 

DENOMINATIONAL AFFILIATION 
OF 1668 PUPILS 



Vtt .*...;, v,it'Wi.'.i 


_____ 




"?<*3Vi.^«.>;V<*w% 






V&»tUo fewer 




immm_uiiiii mi m n I 












C^CC&U OctUiiVvC 


NRVnilH 




\Jtu\t«."i \ vs.iWut\i» 








— SftSMME 




I&UMIM4 


1 IIHWIIW 




Owti'i&U \-»u.<,U«ea** 


3/mmmmm 




C>Wk*U«U» 'Oc.vS.tKifc 


"imp 




WCa.uxv\,^ll*t** 


/^BB 




&P"'**«« d ' 


/?0__HI 




Voou.avatuS.iscval 


/6HHBI 




Wa." 


5M 




SaUwCav* G.*ttv» 


VB 




tW'vWiOa. ^v'vm'bft 


5| 




1WwV(A "ttcs«VU«acv 


X| 




V>UtV«Cvttw vWvOw, 


X| 




WV^vwati^Oki* Wu%Wac»x» 


•2-1 




*»««»•» 


*1 




CLcttcaam.&. 


-J 




< oiv«wiU.\Wv COfetnlv* 1% 




^VC4. tUccU-SUt 


f | 




C^twuvc^tU.?.. 


/ 1 




\\! 6 it ttjjl U.U "CU OSV>. otfvOC 


/I 






/I 





GARY WEEK-DAY CHURCH SCHOOLS 



community to maintain a church. Sometimes the children 
of these people attend Sunday schools of other denomi- 
nations, but quite often they do not. Such children come 
readily to a week-day church school, especially if it is 
operated interdenominationally, thus eliminating any in- 
struction which might contradict the tenets of the denomi- 



126 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

nation to which the parents of these children belong. The 
interdenominational week-day church schools of Gary have 
enrolled children of twenty-nine different denominations 
as indicated in Chart No. 21. 

The week-day church school gathers together the chil- 
dren of our much divided Protestantism. 

The week-day church school not only gathers the spirit- 
ually neglected childhood of the land into its own classes ; 
it wins them for the Christian life and the Church. The 
teacher of an Intermediate class in the Gary week-day 
church schools told the author that every member of his 
class decided for the Christian life, and they joined the 
Church except in the cases where parents refused to let 
them do so. 

10. The week-day church schools are helping to 
secure a better distribution of religious educational 
agencies. The faulty distribution of religious educa- 
tional agencies has been pointed out in a preceding chapter. 
In four of our larger cities, the week-day church schools 
have broken away from the unfortunate distribution of 
religious educational agencies,which a lack of interdenomi- 
national cooperation in the planting of church enterprises 
has inflicted on so many communities. They use church 
buildings if they are near enough to the public schools to 
allow children to pass from public-school building to 
church building conveniently, otherwise they plant a week- 
day church school in some building which is conveniently 
near the public school, or they erect a building of their own 
for religious instruction. The public schools of a city are, 
almost without exception, so distributed as to be con- 
veniently near the children of the city. By following the 
distribution of the public schools, rather than the distribu- 
tion of the churches, the week-day church schools bring 
religious instruction within reach of thousands of spiritu- 
ally neglected children. 



CONTRIBUTIONS OF WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 127 

These problems are fundamental. The interest of the 
Kingdom demands their solution. It is hoped that 
enough has been said to convince many earnest-minded 
men and women of the Church that the week-day church- 
school movement is an instrumentality which gives prom- 
ise of large usefulness in the solving of the problems dis- 
cussed. 

Chart No. 22 

Will the Public Schools Cooperate in a Community Program 
of Religious Instruction? 
percent Churches 
Good Cooperation 



so 



20 
10^ 

1 

Public Schools 

70 



Fair 

Poor « 

No 

Good Coqpertion 

Fair 

Poor 

No 

In Toledo. Thet Cooperate Better Than the Churches Do! 



20 

10 
o 



CHAPTER VI 



Problems Involved in the Organization 

and Administration of Week Day 

Church Schools 



CHAPTER VI 

Problems involved in the organization and admin- 
istration of Week Day Church Schools 

The week-day church school has already demonstrated 
its adaptability to all sorts of circumstances. During the 
school year of 1919-1920, nearly a score of communities 
were carrying on these schools, yet the plans in any com- 
munity were in no case exactly like those in another com- 
munity. These schools are springing up everywhere the 
present year, and the number of communities where they 
are in successful operation is already double that of last 
year. It is safe .to predict that the next few years will 
witness a wonderful development of the movement. That 
each community should go through a long and expensive 
stage of experimentation before hitting upon the church- 
school type best fitted to its needs, is neither desirable nor 
necessary. Several communities have already been through 
such periods of experimentation and their experiences, 
if made available, will save much valuable time and 
hard-earned financial resources. It is the purpose of this 
chapter to give to communities, planning for week-day 
religious instruction, such items of information as may be 
helpful to them in their new religious educational enter- 
prises. The items given are drawn from the actual ex- 
periences of communities engaged in carrying on the work, 
rather than from the author's academic conceptions as to 
what ought to be. 

1. The securing of teachers for the week-day 
church school. "Where shall we get teachers?" is pretty 
sure to be one of the first questions asked by persons who 
are becoming interested in the week-day church-school 

131 



132 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

movement. It is probable that the question grows out of 
Sunday-school experiences. The getting of teachers is a 
bugbear to a good many Sunday-school superintendents. 
Before attempting to answer this question it may be well 
to consider a few facts about the teaching force of week-day 
schools already in operation. Of the 300 teachers engaged 
in week-day religious instruction last year, 

168 were volunteer teachers; 

114 were part-time paid teachers; 
18 were full-time paid teachers. 

These three types of teachers are carrying on the in- 
struction in the week-day church schools. It will be noted 
that not quite half of them are paid, but the paid teachers 
put in so much more time in the work that considerable 
more than half the teaching is done by them. A com- 
parison of the pupils enrolled in schools having volunteer 
teachers with the enrollment of schools having paid teach- 
ers shows that there are over four times as many pupils en- 
rolled in the latter type of schools as in the former type. 
The week-day church-school movement is therefore largely 
depending on paid instructors for its teaching force. Full- 
time paid teachers are employed almost exclusively in 
Gary, Van Wert, Hobart, Grand Rapids, and Oak Park. 
Some of these communities have a few part-time paid teach- 
ers but this is only a temporary arrangement. The com- 
munities named seem to be committed to a policy which 
will make the religious instruction of children a life work 
for their week-day church-school teachers. Part-time paid 
teachers is the rule in Toledo, Evanston, the Calumet 
Region communities, and Cuyahoga Falls. Some of these 
communities, however, are following the present plan only 
temporarily, hoping that with the development of their 
week-day school systems they may ultimately make reli- 
gious instruction a possible life work for their young people 
and their teachers. Volunteer teachers are the rule in 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 133 

Batavia, Northfield, and the week-day church schools 
under the care of the Protestant Teachers' Association in 
New York City. 

It would seem that, in general, the employment of paid, 
and where it is possible, of full-time teachers, for the week- 
day church schools is the better course. A higher stand- 
ard of preparation and of professional efficiency can usu- 
ally be secured if teachers are paid. This rule probably 
does not apply, however, in such cases as that of the New 
York City schools just mentioned. 

The compensation offered full-time paid teachers by the 
week-day church schools is approximately the same as that 
received by public-school teachers of corresponding grade. 
Part-time paid teachers are usually offered from one dollar 
and fifty cents to two dollars and fifty cents per hour for 
time employed in classroom work. This rate is not large 
considering that the successful teacher must spend much 
more time in the work than that consumed in the recita- 
tion period. 

Communities carrying on week-day religious instruction 
have secured their teachers from various sources. Among 
them the following may be mentioned : 

a. Public-School Teachers. In the church schools 
held before public school, after public school, and on Sat- 
urdays, many public-school teachers are employed. Their 
training, their experience, and their devotion to the welfare 
of childhood make these public-school teachers invaluable 
aids in the educational undertakings of the Church. Many 
Jewish teachers in the public schools of New York are 
teaching in the Hebrew week-day schools which meet after 
the close of the public-school sessions. The right of a 
public-school teacher so to use the hours of the day not 
taken up with public-school duties ought not to be ques- 
tioned. The exercise of such a right is no infringement 
upon the separation of Church and State. 



134 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

b. Retired School-Teachers. Many of the most effi- 
cient and faithful teachers in the week-day church schools 
are found among those who have had training for teach- 
ing in the public schools and experience in such work, but 
have ceased to be so employed. Some of these ex-school- 
teachers are now mothers of families, but w^here home 
duties allow it, they are often of even greater service to the 
Church because they have experienced the responsibilities 
and joys of motherhood. Our larger cities commonly have 
definite age limits for their teaching force — limits at which 
all teachers are required to retire from the teaching star! 
of the city schools. Many of these teachers are still cap- 
able of valuable service. The week-day church schools 
open to such of these retired teachers as are interested in 
religious work a field of fruitful labor. There are several 
such retired public-school teachers who are engaged in 
week-day church-school work; rounding out a life of serv- 
ice with the noblest service of all, a spiritual ministry to 
little children. 

c. Students in Colleges and Universities. Church 
schools in college and university towns have found efficient 
teachers for their church schools among that part of the 
student body preparing for educational and Church work. 
Especially helpful teachers are found among the graduate 
students in religious education where colleges and univer- 
sities have graduate courses in this new field. 

d. Church Assistants, Settlement House Workers, 
Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. Secretaries. It sometimes 
happens that some one on the working staff of some of the 
organizations named is fitted for church-school teaching, 
and able to give some time to it. A church-school teach- 
ing force specially trained for religious education as a life 
work, is the ideal toward which we ought to move; but 
under present circumstances, we must often be satisfied 
with something less than ideal arrangements. 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 135 

e. Sunday-School Teachers." Teachers who have 
given faithful service in the Sunday schools and have 
caught the real educational enthusiasm, and have de- 
veloped skill in giving instruction, are valuable aids to the 
week-day church-school movement. Such teachers wel- 
come the more ample time for instruction and the helpful 
supervision which are coming into being with the week- 
day church school. 

/. Young People and Other Capable Persons Who 
Are Interested in the Religious Instruction of the 
Young. A community can do a good deal toward train- 
ing its own week-day church-school teachers. At the time 
this is being written, a class of over thirty people who are 
preparing to teach in week-day church schools of 
Philadelphia are meeting regularly under the instruction 
of Professor Yocum of the University of Pennsylvania. 

2. Rooms and equipment for week-day church- 
school classes. Statistics as to places of meeting are 
available from a hundred week-day church-school centers. 
Of these schools 

66 meet in churches. 

2 meet in settlement houses. 

16 meet in public-school buildings. 

2 meet in rented halls. 

13 meet in parish houses. 

1 meets in a rectory. 

1 meets in a Y. W. C. A. building. 

1 meets in a building erected and used for week-day reli- 
gious instruction. 

It will be noted that more than half of the schools meet in 
church buildings. The classes are not usually held in the 
church auditorium, but in some smaller room where some 
attempt has been made to secure teaching conditions. In 
a few cases, these church rooms are fairly satisfactory, but 
in many cases they are poorly suited to classroom work. 



136 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

The necessity for using these rooms for other purposes than 
the church-school recitations makes it difficult to furnish 
them properly for educational purposes. Most church 
buildings have been constructed with but little thought of 
the teaching function of the Church. Week-day church 
schools with only the ordinary church rooms as a meeting 
place work under a heavy handicap. Every experienced 
teacher knows how hard it is to preserve order and give 
efficient instruction in a room poorly fitted for recitation 
work. 

The difficulties found in church buildings are apt to exist 
in an even greater degree in settlement houses, rented halls, 
and other temporary school quarters. Like the churches, 
these buildings were not constructed with educational 
activities in view. Sometimes they can be modified in 
such a way as to answer educational needs, after a fashion; 
sometimes their whole plan of structure is so faulty that 
an effective remodeling is out of the question. In any case 
they are apt to be makeshifts. 

The church-school classes held in public-school buildings 
have a vastly better teaching environment than the church- 
school classes held in any of the other buildings named. The 
neat and comfortable individual desk, the abundant win- 
dow space with proper exposure to the sunlight, the plenti- 
ful and properly placed blackboard space, the efficient 
ventilation system, the dependable heating plant; all these 
are the product of a good many years of public-school 
evolution. 

They have had a great deal to do with the transforma- 
tion of the public schools from the dim rebellious prisons 
of our grandparents into the sunny and delightful school 
homes of our children. If the church schools must begin 
with the rooms and equipment of sixty years ago, their 
case is, indeed, unfortunate. The better educational en- 
vironment of the public-school building registers itself ini- 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 137 

mediately in the church-school classes held in such build- 
ings. The order is better, the attention of the class more 
constant, and the interest more sustained than in the 
classes meeting eles where. And yet the practice of hous- 
ing church-school classes in public-school buildings is sub- 
ject to some grave objections. Even though rent is paid 
by the church school for the use of the public-school build- 
ing, the fact remains that such an arrangement is not far 
from the border line which divides Church and State. 

As has been said, Gary has one modest building, owned 
by the Board of Religious Education, which was built and 
equipped for week-day religious instruction. It is the 
first of its kind in the country. It is an inexpensive struc- 
ture simply furnished, yet in plan and equipment it is up 
to the public-school standard. It represents the ideal to- 
ward which we ought to be moving; namely, church-school 
buildings owned by the Church and built and equipped for 
religious educational work. 

3. Time for week-day church-school classes. Of 
a hundred week-day church schools from which informa- 
tion has been gathered, 

12 meet in the morning before the opening of public- 
school classes. 

25 meet in the afternoon after the dismissal of public- 
school classes. 

3 meet on Saturdays. 

60 meet during the day while the public-school classes 
are in session. 

It will be seen that more than half of the church schools 
have made arrangements with the public schools whereby 
public-school time is secured for the church-school classes. 
This is by far the best arrangement. Church-school classes 
meeting before public school, and after public school, 
work under distinct disadvantages. The former are incon- 
veniently early in the day, the latter inconveniently late. 



138 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

Both must invade the time which children have been accus- 
tomed to give to play and home duties. The after-public 
school classes come at a time when the pupils are tired by 
the tasks of the day. Under both arrangements the children 
all come at once or, at best, in two groups. Twice as 
many teachers are needed as is the case when the church 
school can run throughout the day, and the expenses for 
seats and teaching materials are increased. 

The public-school authorities have gladly granted this 
time concession to the church schools in several com- 
munities. It is only right that they should so so. Reli- 
gious education is second to no other in importance, and the 
right of churches to request a part of the child's school day 
for the inculcating of the religious and moral truths,which 
the Church alone can give under our system of govern- 
ment, cannot be logically denied. Less than a century ago 
all the school time of children was in the hands of the 
churches. That the small portion of time needed for 
religious education should be restored to the churches is 
not an unreasonable request. 

Extensive opposition to the plan of granting public- 
school time to the church-school classes is hardly to be ex- 
pected from the abler educational leaders of our country. 
Many of them have long been aware of a grave defect in 
the American educational system. Many have come to 
see that morality and patriotism cannot be rightly taught 
apart from the development of the religious faculties. 
This problem of the time adjustment between the public 
schools and the church schools has been considered by 
legal experts in several different states and their decisions 
have been uniformly in favor of the legality of such ar- 
rangements as secure public-school time for church-school 
classes. 

The following statement issued by State Superintendent 
Blair of Springfield, Illinois, is typical: 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 139 

The State Superintendent of Instruction commenting upon week-day 
religious instruction points out that there is no illegality about the- 
program. Beyond the state requirement that physiology and hygiene 
be taught every child, each community is charged with the responsi- 
bility of determining its own course of study. State Superintendent 
Blair states that there are no definite hours of instruction required by 
law. In this also the community fixes its own hours of instruction. 
It has the right of permitting children to go to classes in religion, if 
the parents so desire. The decision is one for the parents to make in 
each individual case after the Board of Education has granted per- 



The sensible view of the matter contained in the above 
statement has been expressed in like form in every state 
where the matter has, thus far, been up for official decision. 
The only possible exception is the case of New Jersey, 
where the matter is still pending. 

Boards of Education in cities have, almost without ex- 
ception, taken kindly to the plan. Word has just been 
received that the School Board of Kansas City has granted 
the public-school pupils permission to be absent from 
certain public-school periods that they may receive reli- 
gious instruction if their parents so desire. 

In Somerville, New Jersey, a committee composed of a 
Protestant minister, a Roman Catholic priest, and a rep- 
resentative of the Jewish synagogue, waited upon the 
School Board and presented a petition for public-school 
time to be used in religious instruction. The minutes of 
the Board state that "the members of the Board expressed 
themselves as favorable and voted unanimously that the 
request be granted." 

It is well to remember, in this connection, that the sub- 
jects taught in the church schools are, themselves, not de- 
void of information and cultural value. It is not a case of 
asking the public schools to curtail the curriculum of in- 
struction so much as it is a case of asking a slight change 
in the subject matter of the child's curriculum of studies. 
Let us say, for example, that in order to attend the church- 



140 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

school classes, pupils will have to miss a certain amount of 
the public-school instruction in history, geography, and 
English. A rightly planned and efficiently taught church- 
school course would go far toward compensating for any 
cutting down of the public-school studies. A study of the 
history of the Hebrew people, or a study of church history, 
may be as valuable to the child as any of the historical 
courses of the public-school curriculum. Considered with 
regard to its geographical features, Palestine is a wonderful 
little country. The great depression of the Dead Sea is 
deeper than any other on the land surface of the earth. 
The springs of the Jordan are among the largest in the 
world. The climate varies from the constant cold of the 
Hermon summits, where snow lies throughout the year, to 
the constant heat of the Jordan Valley. The frigid, the 
temperate, and the torrid zone are represented by charac- 
teristic forms of animal and vegetable life. The Ethiopian, 
the Indian, and the Palearctic life zones touch one another 
within the bounds of this little country. It is not difficult 
to believe that an intensive study of the geography of 
Palestine might have as great a value as any of the regular 
public-school courses in that subject. It is difficult to 
think of anything in the public-school course as having a 
greater educational value than a thorough church-school 
course on the English Bible. The literature of the Bible 
has been wrought into the literature of all modern nations. 
Many references in literature are unintelligible to one who 
has no knowledge of the Scriptures. In bringing into the 
American educational system a thorough study of the 
Bible, the church schools would be filling a distinct want 
long recognized by many American educators. 

4. Courses of study for week-day church-school 
classes. The selection of lesson materials for week-day 
church-school classes is a matter of importance. The week- 
day church-school movement has not been under way long 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 141 

enough to produce a very abundant supply of lesson ma- 
terial. Two denominations, however, the Baptists and 
the Presbyterians, have gotten out week-day church- 
school courses correlated with their Sunday-school lessons. 
The Baptist week-day course consists of lessons in which 
the regular Keystone lessons, used in their Sunday schools, 
are reviewed and reemphasized. The Presbyterian week- 
day course, on the other hand, introduces much additional 
material not being confined to a review of the preceding 
Sunday-school lesson and a preview of the one for the 
next Sunday. The Presbyterian course is correlated with 
the Departmental Graded Lessons. 

The Episcopal Church has found its Christian Nurture 
Course quite well suited for use in week-day classes, and 
sufficiently suggestive to furnish teaching matter for both 
the Sunday-school and the week-day classes. The Gary 
Leaflets have been developed during the past three years 
in the week-day church schools of that city. They con- 
tain much color work for children, and have proved quite 
satisfactory in a number of schools. Part of the classes in 
the Toledo week-day church schools of Toledo use "Graded 
Lessons in Bible Study," prepared by Professor A. W. 
Trettien, Professor of Psychology and Secondary Educa- 
tion in Toledo University. Other classes use Burgess' "Life 
of Christ" and Chamberlain's "Hebrew Prophets." 

In classes for older pupils it is possible to introduce some 
subjects of a general nature which will be a helpful supple- 
ment to almost any Sunday-school course. A consider- 
able number of books which might be used for such classes 
is now available. Subjects which readily lend themselves 
to such uses are Hebrew History, Church History, Bible 
Geography, Christian Missions, History of the English 
Bible, The Bible in Art, and Christian Ethics. 

A close correlation of the Sunday-school course, and the 
week-day course is highly desirable with the children of 



142 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

the lower grades, and in week-day church schools where 
the pupils in the classes are practically all members of the 
Sunday school conducted by the church which carries on 
the week-day school. If the pupils of the week-day 
school do not attend any Sunday school, it is better to j 
have a course for them which is in itself a unity. 

5. Governing boards for week-day church schools. 
The three types of week-day church schools will, of 
course, require different kinds of administrative organiza- 
tions. In the individual church, or denominational type, 
the most successful plan seems to be to bring all the edu- 
cational agencies of the local church under a governing 
body, which is usually called the Church Council of Reli- 
gious Education. Most denominations now have literature 
telling how to organize such a council. The Sunday 
school, week-day church school, young people's societies, 
boys' and girls' clubs, and all other educational agencies of 
the local church should come under the supervision of this 
council which is charged with the task of bringing the 
varied programs of these several organizations into one 
harmonized and correlated plan for the religious education 
of the children and youth to whom the church ministers. 
In no other way can duplication and inefficiency be elimi- 
nated from the educational activity of the Church. When 
a director of religious education is employed by the 
church he becomes the executive officer of the council. 
He makes investigations, reports to the council his find- 
ings, confers with it, and carries its plans into execution. 

In the Denominational Community Type of week-day 
church schools, the organization for each individual church 
is the same as that just described. In addition to these 
councils in the individual churches, there is usually an 
organization which is composed of representatives from 
the individual churches and which looks after the general 
supervision of religious education in the community. 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 143 

There are a great many reasons why this Community 
Council should exist in this type of schools. Better 
arrangements for time adjustments with the public schools 
can usually be secured if there is a definite organization 
to push such matters and present a united appeal. Such 
a Community Council should organize, whenever possible, 
a Community Training School. The training of teachers 
for the educational agencies of the Church is in nearly all 
cases, a task too difficult for an individual church. It can 
be efficiently done by interchurch cooperation. There are 
many things which the churches of a community should do 
together, even though each church retains entire control 
of its own week-day religious instruction. Among the 
activities which offer an opportunity for interchurch co- 
operation in the community are community singing, com- 
munity Christmas trees, union picnics, conferences of vari- 
ous sorts, and social-service undertakings of many kinds. 

The organization of this Community Council can be de- 
termined best by the people of the various communities. 
Each congregation is represented on it, usually by its pas- 
tor, Sunday-school superintendent, and often by others 
chosen by the various congregations cooperating in the 
plan. 

In that week-day church-school type which has been 
called the Interdenominational Community Type, the 
Community Council is given larger responsibilities than 
in the type just considered. The general supervision and 
administration of the schools are in its hands. The coun- 
cil in this type of schools employs the teachers, determines 
the course of study, decides as to where the schools shall 
be located, raises the finances for their support, provides 
housing and equipment, and has general supervision of the 
instruction through the superintendent whom it employs 
and from it receives reports. In a few cases, such as that 
of New York City, there is an organization which is called 



144 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

the Interdenominational Board or Council of Religious 
Education, or which bears some similar title, and which is 
made up of representatives from the Protestant churches, 
Roman Catholic churches, and Jewish synagogues. It is 
quite evident that a board so constituted could hardly 
expect to discharge the functions which have just been 
named. In communities having a board of this kind the 
wise plan would seem to be to hand over the conduct of 
the week-day church schools to a subcommittee composed 
of people holding the particular form of religious faith 
which the schools are planned to teach ; and this is the plan 
generally followed. 

The body, having the oversight of the week-day church 
schools, of the type now being considered, varies consider- 
ably as to its plan of organization in the different com- 
munities and is called by several different names. In 
Toledo the governing body is a committee of the Toledo 
Church Federation. In Gary the governing body is called 
the Board of Religious Education, and the smaller execu- 
tive body appointed by this larger body is called the Ex- 
ecutive Committee. In Evanston and the Calumet 
Region the larger governing body is called the Council of 
Religious Education, the smaller body, the Board of Re- 
ligious Education. This twofold arrangement of a larger 
representative board or council and a smaller executive 
body appointed from the larger, is a common arrangement, 
and doubtless serves a useful purpose. The larger body 
brings into the movement a large constituency, thus creat- 
ing a wide sense of responsibility and a broad interest. 
The smaller body, to which most of the work of organizing 
and conducting the schools is committed, makes for 
efficiency. 

It will not be necessary to go into details as to the organ- 
ization of these governing bodies in every community. 
The plan adopted at Gary is typical and can be modified 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION U5 

to suit local conditions. In Gary the larger governing 
body, called the Board of Religious Education is made up 
of four representatives from each cooperating congrega- 
tion. The pastor and the superintendent of the Sunday 
school are ex-officio members of the Board. Two other 
members are chosen by each congregation in such a way as 
it may deem best. The Board of Religious Education 
elects from its membership an Executive Committee to 
which much of the work of administering and supervising 
the schools is intrusted. The Board meets once every 
three months; the Executive Committee once a month. 
The Executive Committee employs the superintendent of 
the church schools and elects the teachers nominated by 
this superintendent. Various subcommittees look after 
such matters as finances, courses of study, buildings and 
equipment, and the location of new schools. 

The schools in the Calumet region, Evanston, Oak Park, 
and Northfield are under the advisory supervision of edu- 
cational institutions located in, or near, the communities 
named. This same sort of supervision is a feature of the 
week-day church-school plans just now being launched in 
Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago. It is an encouraging 
sign that the greatest and most progressive universities of 
our land are giving serious attention to religious educa- 
tion. Their aid is proving invaluable in the cities name. 

6. Financing the week-day church schools. The 
cost of week-day religious instruction varies from almost 
nothing, in some of the local church schools with volunteer 
teachers, up to about ten dollars a year for each pupil 
in some of the schools where all the instruction is given by 
paid teachers and trained supervisors give full time to the 
work. As the schools grow in attendance the cost is com- 
paratively less. The work is now well organized and 
firmly established in Gary, and the annual cost per pupil 
is a little less than five dollars. In schools of the Individual 



146 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

Church Type, by far the best plan for financing the schools 
is to place their necessary expenditures in the regular 
church budget. In the schools under the Denominational 
Community Type the same method should be used to 
finance each local school, but a small budget ought to be 
provided for the use of the interdenominational board 
which has general oversight of the religious educational 
interests of the community. If this board is to undertake 
a Community Training School or other like enterprise, 
its budget will have to be larger. 

When the schools are under interdenominational control 
the raising of the necessary funds for the support of the 
schools devolves upon the interdenominational board or 
council. In Gary, a budget of approximately twelve 
thousand dollars was raised last year from various 
sources as indicated below: 

Cash on hand at beginning of year $ 95.38 

Cash from Building Fund 800 .00 

S. S. Board of M. E. Church 1500 .00 

S. S. Board of Pres. Church 1500.00 

Am. Christian Miss. Society 900.00 

United Pres. Home Mission Board 300 . 00 

Congregational Education Board 250.00 

Reformed Church Mission Board 300 . 00 

First Pres. Church, Gary 120.00 

Central Christian Church, Gary 180 . 00 

Gary Neighborhood House (Pres.) 180 .00 

Westminster Pres. Church, Gary 75 . 00 

Glen Park Christian Ch. Garv 75.00 

Grace M. E. Church, Gary . 75.00 

Ambridge Community Church (M. E.) Gary 75 .00 

First M. E. Church, Gary 158.00 

Local Subscriptions 2683 . 44 

Illinois Steel Co 1500.00 

Other Sources 992.34 

Total $11,759.10 

As indicated in the above, the sources of income for the 
Gary church schools are (1) denominational boards, (2) 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 147 

private subscriptions, (3) corporation subscriptions, (4) 
church subscriptions. There is nothing unusual in the 
fact that the enterprise was helped materially by denomi- 
national boards, since Gary is a home mission field, with a 
very large foreign population, and only two or three self- 
supporting churches. 

In Toledo, funds for the maintenance of the week-day 
church schools were raised in a joint campaign with the 
State Sunday School Association. 

None of the communities has apparently made any 
charge to the pupils for tuition. It would seem that here 
is a field which ought to receive investigation. A large 
part of the funds for carrying on the extensive week-day 
educational enterprises of the Jews in New York City, is 
raised through charges for tuition. Their theory is that 
the available charitable funds of the community ought to 
be used to educate the children w T hose parents are not 
financially able to pay for the schooling of their children, 
not to pay for the schooling of children whose parents are 
abundantly able to pay such tuition charges out of their 
own funds. It is not a bad idea, either; and Protestants 
oughv to see if they cannot come to some such standard 
when their week-day church schools are a little better 
established. 

7. Books and materials for the week-day church 
schools. 

(1) Books which will be found helpful to the Primary teacher. 

Songbooks: "Carols"; "The Primary and Junior Hymnal" ; "Songs 

for Little People." 
"Children's Missionary Story Sermons," Kerr. 
"All About the Primary," Sudlow. 
"The Primary Department," Curtiss. 
"Other People's Children," Sebach. 
"Child Nature and Child Nurture," St. John. 
"Stories and Story Telling," St. John. 
"The Sunday School Hour," Cragin. 
"How to Tell Stories to Children," Bryant. 
"The Secret of a Happy Day," Chapman. 



148 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

"The Song of our Syrian Guest," Knight. 

"Handwork in Religious Education," Wardle. 

"The Blackboard Class for Sunday-School Teachers," Darnell. 

"The Sand Table," Lillie A. Faris. 

"Three Hundred Primary Object Lessons," Cook. 

"The Dramatization of Bible Stories," Miller. 

"Plans and Programs," Williams. 

"Sand-Table Work in the Bible School," Auld. 

(2) Books which will be found helpful to the Junior teacher. 

"The Juniors; How to Teach and Train Them," Baldwin. 
"Children's Devotions," Verkuyl. 
"Training the Devotional Life," Weigle and Tweedy. 
„ "Pictures in Religious Education," Beard. 
"How to Teach Religion," Betts. 
"Dr. Grenfell's Parish," Duncan. 
"The Unfolding Life," Lamoreaux. 
"Things to Make," Hutton. 
"Winning the Oregon Country," Faris. 

(3) Books which will be found helpful to the Intermediate teacher. 
"The Intermediate Department," Foster. 

"Problems of Intermediate and Senior Teachers," Foster. 
"The Religious Education of Adolescents," Richardson. 
"Studies in Adolescent Boyhood," Burr. 
"The Girl in her Teens," Slattery. 
"The Boy Problem," Forbush. 
"Boy Life and Self-Government," Fiske. 
"Representative Men of the Bible," Matheson. 
"Representative Women of the Bible," Matheson. 
"Life of Christ," Burgess. 

(4) Books which will be found useful for the higher classes or for the 

teacher's use. 

"The Meaning of Prayer," Fosdick. 

"The Manhood of the Master," Fosdick. 

"Prayer, Its Nature and Scope," Trumbull. 

"With Christ in the School of Prayer," Murray. 

"Expositor's Bible." 

"Heroes and Crises of Early Hebrew History," Kent. 

"Kings and Prophets of Israel and Judah," Kent. 

"Makers and Teachers of Judaism," Kent. 

"Historical Geography of the Holy Land," Smith. 

"Davis Bible Dictionary." 

"Cambridge Bible." 

"Modern Readers Bible," Moulton. 

"Girlhood and Character," Moxcey. 

"Religious Education in the Family," Cope. 

"How we Got Our Bible," Smythe. 

"Religions of the World," Barton. 

"From Youth to Manhood," Hall. 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IX THE ORGANIZATION 149 

The following articles will be needed for handwork in 
the various departments of the w r eek-day church school: 
book covers, paper, pencils, crayons, erasers, scissors, 
rulers, plasticine or modeling clay, hectograph, pictures, 
maps, paste, water colors, various kinds of "stickers." 
Most of these things can be secured from stationery stores, 
school supply houses, or denominational book stores. 

8. Week-day church-school records and reports. 
Sunday-school records have usually been very poorly 
kept. This is unfortunate for the records of the church 
constitute its system of bookkeeping and good bookkeeping 
is quite as essential to the success of the church as it is to a 
business enterprise. It is to be hoped that all week-day 
church schools will make careful and extensive records 
and preserve them for future reference. Many Sunday 
schools have followed the custom of consigning all records, 
at the end of the year, to the furnace fires in the church 
basement. The records of the educational activities of 
the church ought to possess a value above their fuel value. 

The following items of information ought to be gathered 
from each pupil, put on permanent record, and kept 
convenient for reference: 

(1) Full name of pupil. 

(2) Date of birth. 

(3) Place of birth. 

(4) Name of father. 

(5) Name of mother. 

(6) Number of brothers and sisters. 

(7) Foreign born or native: 

(a) child. 

(b) father. 

(c) mother. 

(8) Residence. 

(9) Employed or in school. 
(10) Member of Sunday school. 



150 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

(11) Member of Church. 

(12) Grade in public school. 

(13) Church of parents. 

(14) Absence. 

(15) Tardiness. 

(16) Date of entering class. 

(17) Date of leaving class. 

(18) Date of promotion. 

(19) Attendance at other religious educational schools. 
If statistics are carefully gathered and analyzed, they 

will be found to be invaluable indications of the progress 
of the schools. When charted and exhibited these statis- 
tics bring the facts concerning the school home to the 
people of the community with a force that can hardly be 
equaled by any other method. 

9. Grading the week-day church school. In 
general, the public-school grading is adhered to in the 
schools for week-day religious instruction. In a few of the 
schools of the Individual Church Type, where the con- 
nection between week-day church school and Sunday 
school is close, the grading is that of the Sunday school. 
Such a conformity of the week-day church school to the 
Sunday-school classifications makes no great difference, 
however, in practice, because the Sunday-school grading 
is usually approximately parallel to that of the public 
school. In Gary and a number of other places twx) public- 
school grades recite together in the church school. Grades 
one and two, of the public school constitute Group One 
in the church school; grades three and four of the public 
school, constitute Group Two of the church school and so 
on. In Gary the church schools are in session on every 
school day of the week wdth the exception of Wednesday 
and run throughout the day. In Batavia the church- 
school classes meet only on Thursday. In Evanston the 
church-school classes meet before public school every 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 151 

school day. In Cuyahoga Falls the church-school classes 
meet on Wednesday afternoons. Many week-day church 
schools have no adjustments as to time with the public 
schools, their classes all being held in out-of-public-school 
hours. 

10. Recruiting pupils for the week-day church 
school. When satisfactory arrangements have been made 
as to the governing board, the place of meeting, the time 
for classes, the equipment of rooms, the course of the study, 
and the teaching force, one element is still lacking before 
you have a school. You must have pupils. Most church 
schools that have, in any measure, secured the items listed, 
have had an easy task to get pupils. Indeed, their prob- 
lem has been how to take care of the children they have 
rather than how to get more. At the start, however, some 
advertising may be advisable. This can always be done 
through the Sunday school, and in some cases it has been 
allowed in public school. Attractive cards outlining 
courses will interest high-school pupils. Handwork exhib- 
ited in some public place will attract the younger pupils. 
Handbills and posters are useful. A committee to follow 
up every child which the school can rightfully claim, will 
be a great help in getting in all the children. In a number 
of cases, vacation Bible schools have grown into week-day 
church schools through the continuation courses they set 
up. This method of beginning the week-day church 
school is worthy of consideration. 

It is well to keep the press of the community informed as 
to the purposes and progress of the week-day church-school 
movement. The right kind of publicity is a great help in 
recruiting for the schools. The printing of invitation and 
registration cards and the circulation of them among the 
children and their parents is, in itself, a good advertisment 
of the schools. A few cards which have been used in this 
way are given in this chapter. 



15* THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 



For Teacher of W. D. B. S. 

ENROLLMENT FOR WEEK-DAY BIBLE SCHOOL 

Toledo, Ohio, 19 

Name of pupil ______ 

Address _ 



Telephone number 

Public school attended 

Grade of pupil in public school 

Sunday school or church attended 

Street number of Sunday school or church 
Denomination of above 



Has the pupil taken the W. D. B. S. before? If so, where? 

Time of Bible class 



_Parent 



For Superintendent of W. D. B. S. 

ENROLLMENT FOR WEEK-DAY BIBLE SCHOOL 

Toledo, Ohio, J9_ 

Name of pupil . 

Address . 

Telephone number 

Public school attended . 

Grade of pupil in public school . . _ 

Sunday school or church attended 

Street No. of Sunday school or church , . . 

Denomination of above . 



Has the pupil taken the W. D. B. S. before? If so, where? . 

Time of Bible class _ 



.Parent 



REQUEST FOR DISMISSAL 

To the Principal of School: 

In accordance with a resolution adopted by the Board of Education 

June 5, 1916, you are hereby courteously requested to dismiss 

from school, each 

at 2.15 p. m., that may receive religious 

instruction at this hour. 

When such instruction ceases to be given, proper notice will be given 
you that this dismissal privilege may be withdrawn. Such notice will 
be sent you either by the teacher who gives the religious instruction or 
by myself. 

P arent. 

Cards Used in the Week-Day Church Schools of Toledo, Ohio 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IX THE ORGANIZATION 



153 



INTERCHURCH FEDERATION OF TOLEDO 
DEPARTMENT OF WEEK-DAY BIBLE STUDY 

This certifies that 



was a member of the Week-Day Bible Class . 

School center, Toledo, from 

and studied lessons, to 



_to 



text, and by reason of attendance, attention, and achievement, is en- 
titled to high credit for the above, 
medium 

C. M. BRUNSON 

Superintendent 



Teacher 



Credit Card Used in Toledo, Ohio, Week-Day Church Schools 
COMMUNITY CHURCH SCHOOL 

REPORT CARD 

Name Grade 



Date of ftTit.Tpnrv» 






















Jan. 


Feb. March; 


April 


May 


Please sign and 
return 


Tim ps a. risen t. 


! ! 


Jan . 


Tinies tardy 


! 


Feb. 


Deportment 










March 


Mem or v work 






April 
May 


Handwork 







TO THE PARENTS 

The church school is a phase of religious training which has grown 
into a nation-wide movement to train children adequately in devotion 
to righteousness. 

We ask your cooperation in keeping the attendance regular, 

THE CHURCH SCHOOL BOARD 

Bertha M. Morse, Teacher 



Report Card Used in Week-Day Church Schools of Hobart, Indiana 



154 



THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 



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t—l 




03 




c+ 




3 


tO 


FT 1 


t— » 


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Cu 


fc© 


3 




00 




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CL 


t© 


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r+- 




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WEEK-DAY RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
REGISTRATION CARD 



Name. 



-Age- 



Address . 
Religion 



Nationality 
Day School 



_Grade 



a* 






I - 

^* r-t 



CO r-4 



5th wk I 6th wk I 7th wk I 8th wk 9th wk 10th wk 1 11th wk 1 12th wk 



Registration and Record Card Used in the Week-Day Church Schools 
of Indiana Harbor, Indiana 



WEEK-DAY BIBLE STUDY 

Pupil's Name 

Street Address 

Classes for week-day religious instruction will be offered again this 

year for the benefit of the pupils of the public schools. 

The necessary money to carry forward this work has been secured, 

and pupils may avail themselves of the opportunity for Bible instruction 

whether their parents are contributors or not. 

No pupil will be allowed to elect this study without the return of 

this card, signed by the parent. 

Parent's signature 

Church parent attends 

Sunday school pupil attends 

Public-school ward 

Public-school grade . 

Age of pupil 



Card Used in Week-Day Church Schools of Van Wert, Ohio 



PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE ORGANIZATION 155 



Kansas City, Mo. 
, 192 



To_ 



Principal School 

In accordance with a resolution of the Kansas City Board of Edu- 
cation, adopted December 2, 1920, you are hereby courteously re- 
quested to dismiss : 



from school, each_ 



at 3.15 p. m., for religious instruction at this hour. 

Signed 

(Parent or Guardian) 

Address 

"Your petition presented to the Board of Directors 
of this School District on the 2nd inst., requesting that 
pupils in the several schools of this city be excused two 
periods per week for religious instruction in their re- 
spective churches, was granted with the request that a 
report be made to the Board from time to time as to re- 
sults of this work, and that a check be made by the Super- 
intendent's Department as to whether pupils so excused 
take such instruction." 

J. B. JACKSON, 

Secretary of Board of Directors, 
Kansas City School District. 



Parents' Request for the Dismissal of a Child, Used in Kansas City 
Week-Da} T Church Schools 



TO THE PARENTS: 

If you wish your child to receive two hours a week, free, unde- 
nominational training in the Bible and the high standards which the 
Bible teaches, sign your name below and return this card to Miss Morse. 



Parent's signature . 
Pupil's name 



Card Used in Week-Day Church Schools of Hobart, Indiana 



156 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

THE UNION CHURCH OF BAY RIDGE Registration Blank 

Week-Day School of Religion 

Applicant's name in full Date , 

Address 

Birthday , _ 

Grade in day school Name of school 

Father's name Occupation . 

Mother's name Phone __. 

What church they attend? . 



PARENTS (1) SIGNATURE REQUIRED. 

Recognizing the value and privilege of this further opportunity for 
religious training and moral development that this school offers through 
its regular Wednesday afternoon instruction 

I promise to cooperate by promoting regular and prompt attendance 
on the part of my child; by sending written excuses if obliged to be 
absent; by assisting in such small home work, largely memory verses, 
as is required; by furnishing that background in the home life which is 
so essential for the pupil's religious growth. 

Signed 

Application Card Used in W 7 eek-Day Church School in Brooklyn 



CHAPTER VII 



Sources of Information Concerning 
Week Day Church Schools 



CHAPTER Vn 

Sources of Information Concerning Week Day 
Church Schools 

Before a community or an individual church undertakes 
to organize week-day religious instruction, information 
should be gathered with care from all available sources. 
The problems connected with such an undertaking are 
many and serious. A satisfactory course of study suited 
to all the local needs is not always readily obtainable. 
There is always the problem of financing the enterprise. 
If many churches and communities rush into the move- 
ment without adequate preparation, they are apt to find 
themselves in serious difficulties within a few weeks, and 
the whole movement may thus be brought into a state of 
reaction and delay. 

The week-day church-school movement presents oppor- 
tunities for the trying of new religious educational meth- 
ods, but it ought not to become a free-for-all forum where 
all sorts of projects are put into operation. All who have 
any part in starting these schools should remember that 
the experience of their predecessors in the movement is 
invaluable. It is recommended that before organizing 
week-day church schools, correspondence be carried on 
with several communities where this type of religious edu- 
cation has been successfully established. It would be 
better still if a committee could visit some such com- 
munity and see the schools in actual operation. Certain 
.methods of conducting these schools have been tried re- 
peatedly and failed in every case; yet one hears, every now 
and then, of some community starting out in the same old 
way. Certain other methods have been uniformly suc- 



160 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

cessful; new week-day church-school enterprises would do 
well to begin with these. 

In view of the above facts, it has seemed well to close 
this book with a few suggestions as to where further infor- 
mation can be secured regarding week-day religious in- 
struction. An earnest effort has been made to gather as 
much information into this little book as possible, but the 
size of the volume, which it seemed advisable to publish at 
this time, has set definite limits as to subject matter; more- 
over, in the present state of the week-day church-school 
movement no book can consistently lay claim to posses- 
sing all that needs to be said on the matter. So long as 
the movement is growing as it is, the only safe method is 
to supplement the information gathered through reading 
by correspondence with the communities where the work 
is being done or by personal observation of the same. 

I. Agencies 

1. Denominational Boards. Several of the larger 
denominations have given this new type of religious edu- 
cation serious attention. Through their educational 
Boards they offer a threefold service to churches and com- 
munities desiring to start week-day church schools. First 
of all they offer a service of information. They have 
printed bulletins dealing with the various types of week- 
day church schools and the problems involved in the or- 
ganization of week-day religious education. They carry on 
correspondence with centers in which these schools are in 
operation, send their representatives to visit them, and 
thus collect information to give out to the churches. In 
the second place they offer a service of lesson materials. 
Several denominational Boards have week-day church- 
school lessons, correlated with the regular Sunday- 
school lessons of the denomination. In the third place 
they offer a service of expert advice. Representatives 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 161 

of these Boards correspond with churches and communities 
desiring to start week-day church schools and when pos- 
sible visit them and help in the organization of the work. 
The first thing that any church should do, if it contem- 
plates the organization of these schools, would seem to be 
to get into communication with the Board of its denomina- 
tion having supervision of this type of educational work. 
Where a community plan of church schools is contem- 
plated, it would seem wise to correspond with the Boards 
of all denominations uniting in the undertaking. Follow- 
ing is a list of denominational Boards which have made 
provision for serving their churches in the matter of week- 
day religious education: 

Baptist (Northern), Rev. T. S. Young, 1701 Chestnut 
Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Presbyterian (U. S. A.) Rev. W. A. Squires, Witherspoon 
Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Methodist Episcopal, Rev. J. V. Thompson, 58 East 
Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois. 

Episcopal, Mr. Edward Sargent, 389 Fourth Avenue, 
New York, New York. 

Congregational, Mrs. Millicent P. Yarrow, Congrega- 
tional House, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Reformed (U. S.) Rev. C. A. Hauser, Reformed Church 
Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

2. Interdenominational organizations. Several 
interdenominational organizations have taken a keen 
interest in week-day religious education and have gathered 
and distributed a considerable amount of information on 
the matter. Among them ought to be named the follow- 
ing: 

The Religious Education Association, 1440 East 57th 
Street, Chicago, Illinois. This organization publishes the 
magazine, Religious Education, and has printed several 
hundred pages on the subject of week-day religious in- 



162 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

struction. Some of this matter has appeared in the ma- 
gazine named, some of it in pamphlet form. 

The Interdenominational Committee on Week-Day 
Religious Instruction, Mrs. H. W. Farrington, Secretary, 
615 West 138th Street, New York, New York. This 
organization is seeking to secure city- wide cooperation of 
Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews in week-day 
church schools maintained by these religious types. The 
experience of this committee ought to be valuable to other 
great cities when they begin to grapple with the problem 
of providing adequate religious instruction for all their 
children and youth. 

The International Sunday School Association, 5 North 
Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois. This organization has a 
committee charged with responsibility for the study of 
week-day religious education and the promoting of week- 
day church schools. 

The Sunday School Council of Evangelical Denomina- 
tions. This body has recently organized a committee on 
week-day religious education, of which Dr. Norman E. 
Richardson, Evanston, Illinois, is secretary. 

These four organizations should be consulted, especially 
in cases where the week-day church schools are to be 
organized on an interdenominational basis. 

II. Literature 

Pamphlets published by the Religious Education 
Association. 

"Week-Day Religious Schools," Henry F. Cope, (In 
preparation.) 

"Week-Day Religious Instruction," Bulletin No. 14, 
(American Baptist Publication Society). 

"The Gary Plan of Church Schools," (Presbyterian 
Board). 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 163 

"Week-Day Religious Instruction," (Northwestern Uni- 
versity) . 

"The Progress of Week-Day Religious Instruction,' ' 
(Chicago Church Federation). 

"Week-Day Religious Instruction as Conducted at 
Gary, Indiana." (Methodist Sunday School Board). 

"Two Types of Week-Day Church Schools," (Presby- 
terian Board) . 

"The Van Wert Plan," (Van Wert Board of Religious 
Education). 

"The Toledo Plan," (Committee of Toledo Church 
Federation). 

"Week-Day Religious Instruction," R. W. Miller. 
(Reformed Church Board). 

"Religious Education in the Public Schools," G. U. 
Wenner, (New York City). 

"The Abingdon Bulletins," (Abingdon Press). 

"The Educational Work of the Church," Bulletin Ncx 1, 
(United States Bureau of Education). 

"Educational Policy," Bulletin No. 1, (International 
Sunday School Association). 

"Some Questions," (Protestant Episcopal Board). 

"Secondary Credit Courses in Bible," (Iowa Teachers' 
Association) . 

"Bible Study and the Public Schools," (Presbyterian 
Board). 

III. Leaders of Week-Day Church-School Enter- 
prises 

Baltimore, Md., Miss Grace Garee, 1613 Linden Ave. 

Batavia, 111., Rev. Victor Hoag. 

Cory don, Iowa, Miss Anna C. Vonkoert. 

Charleston, W. Va., Rev LeRoy Dakin. 

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Rev. R, F. Mayer. 

Cuylerville, N. Y., Rev. A. E. Munn. 



164 THE WEEK DAY CHURCH SCHOOL 

Calumet Region of Indiana, Mr. N. F. Forsyth, Whit- 
ing, Ind. 

Evanston, HI., Rev. F. M. McKibben, Hatfield Hall. 

Oak Park, III, Rev. F. M. McKibben, Hatfield Hall. 

River Forest, 111., Rev. F. M. McKibben, Hatfield Hall. 

Toledo, Ohio, Professor C. M. Branson, Nicholas 
Building. 

Gary, Ind., Miss Mary Abernethy, Seventh and Adams 
Streets. 

New York City, Mr. Harry Wade Hicks, Metropolitan 
Tower. 

Northfield, Minn., Professor Allan Hoben. 

Howard, N. Y., Rev. Geo. A. Wilkinson. 

Oakland, Cal., Rev. John M. Donaldson. 

Geneva, N. Y., Rev. Edwin H. Dickinson. 

Little Rock, Ark., Rev. M. H. Krauss. 

Independence, Mo., Rev. S. F. Riepma. 

Wichita, Kan., Rev. Frederick Maier. 

Wampum, Pa., Rev. Harry E. Woods. 

Los Angeles, Cal., Miss Rose Scott, 402 Columbia Bldg. 

Kansas City, Mo., Rev. M. C. Settle, Y. M. C. A. 

Somerville, N. J., Rev. K. G. McComb, 3 Division St. 

Scranton, Pa., Miss Elizabeth Taft. 

Rochelle, 111., Rev. Earl F. Zeigler. 

Rochester, N. Y., Dr. Irving T. Clark. 

Hobart, Ind., Rev. J. E. Lawrence. 

Van Wert, Ohio, Miss May K. Cowles. 

IV. Lesson Courses 

Some of the lesson courses available have already been 
mentioned in this book. If none of these are suitable, it 
may be advisable to choose certain independent courses 
such as church history, missions, or Bible geography. 
Churches desiring to do this should write to their own 
denominational publishing house for a list of books suit- 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 165 

able for such use. The Presbyterian Board of Publication 
and Sabbath School Work has recommended the following 
in answer to requests of the kind mentioned- 
Church History 

"Landmarks of Church History, 5 ' Cowan. 

"Growth of the Christian Church," Nichols. 
Bible Geography 

"Historical Geography of Bible Lands," Calkin. 

"Hurlbut's Bible Atlas." 

"Historical Geography of the Holy Land." (For ref- 
erence). 
Missions 

Current study books for adults and young people. 

"History of Christian Missions," Robinson. 

"A Short History of Christian Missions," Smith, 

"Winning the World," Leonard. 
History of the Bible 

"How We Got Out Bible," Smyth. 
The Bible in Art 

"Pictures in Religious Education," Beard. 

"Gospel in Art," Bailey. 

"Story of the Masterpieces," Stuart. 
Ethics 

"Ethics for Children," Cabot. 

"Everyday Ethics," Cabot. 



GENERAL INDEX 

Additions to the church from Sunday school 20 

Adolescence 30 

Adolescent crime 27 

Akron plan 17, 118 

American system of education 83 

Attendance 97, 114 

Batavia, 111 94, 95, 123 

Blanks for enrollment . ¥ 152 

Books and supplies 147, 162, 165 

Brooklyn, N. Y 91 

Bushnell, Rev. Horace 17 

Children out of Sunday school 59 

Christian nurture 17 

Church statistics 18 

Communicant classes 76 

Communities carrying on week-day religious instruction 89, 108 

Community training schools 74 

Contact with community 21 

Cope, Dr. Henry F 101 

Correlation 54, 116 

Corydon, Iowa 98 

Courses oi study. 52, 97, 117, 140, 164 

Credits for Bible study 18,80,96 

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio 94, 95 

Daily Vacation Bible Schools 70 

Denominational affiliation of pupils 125 

Denominational type 87 

Denominational community type 87, 94 

Distribution of agencies 55 , 126 

Dominant psychic activities 26 

Education in China 39 

Education in Germany 39 

Education in Japan 38 

Education in the Philippine Islands 38 

Elk Mound, Wis 72 

Evanston, 111 100 

Expenses 50, 97, 104, 145 

Expressional activities 34, 53, 119 

Financial support 50 

Flint, Mich 90 

Foreign-born populations 124 

166 



GENERAL INDEX 167 

Gary, Ind 3, 82, 100, 103, 123 

German school system 39 

Governing boards 142 

Grading 150 

Grand Rapids, Mich 88 

Growth of week-day religious education 3, 105, 106 

Hebrew religious education 47, 83, 102 

Heredity 31 

Hobart, Ind 100 

Housing and equipment 51, 96, 118, 135 

Inadequacy of educational agencies 45 

Indiana Harbor, Ind 100, 123 

Individual church type 87 

Interdenominational community type 87, 99 

Jewish religious education 47, 83, 102 

Juvenile delinquency 27 

Latham, Rev. A. L 73 

Leavitt, Rev. H. H. . .... 92 

Leaders in week-day religious instruction 161, 163 

Mysticism 34 

New York City 100, 101 

Need for spiritual power 58 

Northfield, Minn 94, 98 

Occasional classes 75 

Parochial schools 46, 76 

Pastors' classes 76 

Percentage of children in Sunday school 59 

Percentage of children reached by Sunday school 63 

Percentage of children uniting with the church 21, 63 

Percentage of public-school children in week-day church schools .... 120 

Pre-school chapel service 78 

Protestant teachers' association 101 

Prussian education 39 

Psychology of religion 29 

Public-school credits for Bible study 18, 80, 96 

Ravenswood, 111 78 

Recruiting pupils 151 

Reform movements 35 

Rochester, N. Y 88 

Roman Catholic education 46, 76, 113 

Somerville, N. J 94, 98, 139 

Squires, Prof. Vernon P 80 

Summer schools of religion 72 

Sunday-school improvements 17 

Sunday school as a recruiting force 21 



168 GENERAL INDEX 

Supervision 49 

Supplemental agencies 69 

Teachers 48, 96, 116, 131 

Teacher training 49, 74 

Temperance instruction 36 

Time for religious instruction .46, 112, 137, 138 

Toledo, Ohio 82, 88, 103 

Types of week-day church schools 87 

Union Church of Bay Ridge 91 

Van Wert, Ohio 100, 103, 123 

Wisconsin plan 73 

World's Sunday School Association 17 

Y. M. C. A. classes 78 

Y. W. C. A. classes , 78 



INDEX TO GRAPHS AND CHARTS 

Additions to the Church 21 

Age of Conversion 23 

Contact with Community 22 

Cooperation 6f Churches and Public Schools with Week-Day Church 

Schools in Toledo 127 

Communities Where Week- Day Religious Instruction Has Been 

Organized (1920) 106 

Communities Where Week-Day Religious Instruction Has Been 

Organized (1921) 106 

Dominant Activity 26 

Denominational Affiliation of Pupils in Gary 125 

Enrollment in Schools of Gary 120 

Growth of the Week-Day Church-School Movement 105 

How Sunday Schools are Reaching Their Constituency 61 

Organization of a Local Church for Week-Day Religious Instruction . 93 
Organization of the Denominational Community Type of W T eek-Day 

Church Schools 95 

Organization of the Interdenominational Community Type of Week- 

Day Church Schools . 99 

Percentage of Attendance in Sunday Schools and W 7 eek-Day Church 

Schools of Gary 115 

Percentage of Public-School Pupils in W T eek-Day Church Schools . .121 
Percentage of Pupils Receiving No Other Religious Instruction. . . .122 
Pupils of Foreign-Born and Colored Parentage in the Gary Week- 
Day Church Schools '. 124 

Religious Instruction Provided by Protestants, Catholics, and Jews . . 113 

Sunday-School Enrollment in Anderson, Ind 59 

Yearly Cost Per Pupil for Instruction 104 

Youth and Crime 29 



